Search for the Moon Princess
by nomuse
Summary: There is no Sailor Moon... The big conclusion to the Tokyo Tower two-parter, and the end of the Lita story arc.
1. Dreams

Episode One : Dreams   
  
Prologue:

The blond girl with the long pigtails raced down the sidewalk. She plunged around a corner, almost stumbled, then charged on towards her school with yet another anguished look at her watch.

Then, in one moment at the quantized edge of reality, a pebble turned under the girl's foot. She teetered in air for a moment then slammed into the pavement. Tears fountained as she sat and wailed.

On the Tokyo street a black cat slipped from an alley and looked around with a more-than-feline intelligence. For a long moment the cat stared in the general direction of the fallen girl, as if something was tickling at the edges of its senses. Then it turned and raced off, searching deeper into the city.

  
  
  
  
  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS

  
  
Episode One: Dreams

  
  
  
  
Amy paused at the door to her new homeroom. "I don't believe it," she said to the empty hallway in Juuban Junior High. She lifted her hand. There was actually a little tremor in it. "What am I scared of?"

Her mother had offered to drive her in on this first day. "I'll be fine," Amy had said quickly. The residency of a new doctor was hard enough without having a daughter at home needing her all the time. "I'll be walking there every other day," Amy had added.

Doctor Mizuno smiled. "Here is your lunch then. I hope you are very happy in this new school." Then she was off, hurrying to make her shift at the big hospital downtown.

For a moment Amy wanted to call out to her. For a moment she wanted to be a problem, and need her mother to take care of her. "I'm a big girl now," Amy told herself firmly. "I'm going to be a doctor too. And I'm going to make sure mother continues to have reason to be proud of me." 

When the time came, Amy left the neat two-story house and walked briskly down the sidewalk. About her was a mix of wooden post-war residences, more modern buildings, a small shop or two, the quiet facade of a foreign embassy. Ahead of her the Tokyo Tower looked out benignly over the heart of the city. 

April had come to Tokyo in a rosy dawn of cherry blossoms, banishing the lingering chill of March and heralding spring. The light blouse and pleated skirt of her new school's sailor suit felt eminently practical in this weather, and the books in her satchel made a comfortable weight. 

It was even a comfort knowing there would be a lot of studying ahead as she made up for the three weeks she'd missed in the transfer. She'd need to find a study partner. Maybe they could go to Azabu Library after school, study together until Amy had to scurry downtown for the session at Crystal Academy. 

She was passing a small park. Amy paused for a moment to take in the effect of the clouds of pink petals against the background of green leaves and grass and the clear blue of the sky. She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes for a moment. Then she walked on, satchel swinging rhythmically against her back.

I and the new friends I'll make can picnic in that park, she thought. Visit the Inari shrine together on festival day. It would be much better at Juuban Junior High than at that stuffy little "Gifted" school. She should have no trouble making friends here. And Juuban had an excellent academic standing, too. With good grades there, and with the evenings at Crystal Academy to prepare for exams, she should have no trouble getting into medical school.

The grounds of the Junior High were quiet; classes were in session. But Amy stopped, again. There was something just slightly "off" about the picture. Was there an unexpected overcast creeping in? Was it just a little too quiet, without even the birds that filled the rest of the neighborhood?

Amy shook off the moment of odd apprehension and walked briskly on. She found her new homeroom without difficulty. From within she could hear the voice of the teacher. And paused once more. This time the wrongness she felt seemed to seep from the walls of the school itself. It was like a chill in the air, or the faintest whiff of mold and rot. 

She forced a smile. "Don't be silly," she told herself. "I don't believe it. What am I scared of?" She knocked decisively at the door and went in. 

Twenty-five faces turned towards her. For this moment they were a mere pattern of pale ovals on a checkerboard of white and black school uniforms. Amy knew what to do. She walked to the front of the class and stood quietly, hands clasped in front of her. She felt the eyes of the class on her. At the moment they held mild interest, perhaps a touch of curiosity. Nothing warmer.

"Miss Mizuno is transferring to us from the Albert Einstein School for the Gifted Youngster," the homeroom teacher told her class. "I want you all to give her a warm welcome."

"Welcome, Miss Mizuno," the class replied in a ragged chorus.

"And," the teacher held up her hand, "I want you to pay special attention to her. At her previous school Miss Mizuno scored in the 99th percentile across the All-Japan Practice Examinations. I think you all could learn something from her diligence and study habits." Amy winced inside. She wasn't sure this was any way to make friends at a new school.

"Yes, Miss Tanazaki," the class chorused, even less together this time. Amy thought she heard a sardonic note or two. The unfamiliar sensation in the pit of her stomach grew.

"Now, Amy, why don't you tell the class a little about yourself?"

"Um..." Amy was at a rare loss for words. She smiled, shyly.

"I came to Juuban because it is a good school," she said. Oh, wrong, wrong, she thought. I'm making myself look like some kind of nerd. "I'm not really the boring type who just likes to study," she said quickly. Heat came to her face. Oh, why did everything she said sound so stupid!

"I live at home with my mother," she said then. "I'm an only child," she added. This would be a good time to stop, she thought. She looked vainly at the teacher, hoping for permission to go to her seat now.

She didn't get that permission. Amy looked out again at the faces of the girls and boys who would be her classmates for the next three years. "Father is in America as part of an Arts Fellowship," she told them. "We moved to Azabu-Juuban two months ago, but I wasn't able to transfer until after the school year started."

She was sure she saw the lips of one boy move, shaping the word "Boring!" She noticed suddenly that several of the boys had their collars unbuttoned like comic-book toughs.

"I'm sure I'll like this school very much," she said, trying desperately to wrap things up. "Thank you for welcoming me to your class."

And, at last, Miss Tanazaki got the hint. She pointed out the new entry in the seating chart, showed Amy the locker she'd keep her P.E. supplies in, and allowed her to take her seat.

Amy sat very straight, her face still warm. She was beginning to think it was going to be a long three years.

  
  
  
  
The bell rang. Everyone except for those who would stay and clean the classroom grabbed belongings out of their desks and headed for the door. Amy hung back a little, letting the crowd surge through the hallways first.

Up ahead there was a scuffle. Amy heard a muffled exclamation, a student turned suddenly, and there was the sharp crack of a blow. 

By the time she got there both fighters had vanished, but an eighth-grade girl was on the floor in a spill of fallen books and papers. Amy knelt by her. "Are you hurt?" She asked.

The student shook her head mutely. In her eyes Amy saw a look of fear and resignation that brought her heart to her throat. As if she knows she is and will continue to be a victim, Amy thought. What in the world is going on at this school? Her hands found the fallen books, restoring them to the girl's bag, then she helped her to her feet.

It wasn't just her imagination. There was definitely something wrong at Juuban Junior High.

  
  
  
  
"More roses, Darien? She must be quite a girl!"

The tall, handsome young man answered the flower-seller with a gesture that was half shrug, half wave. Why do I keep buying roses? he wondered. I guess I just like having them around.

He left the door of his apartment open, dropped the roses in a vase already prepared for them, and opened both windows wide. The curtains billowed past him in the cross-breeze.

Darien's eyes were thoughtful beneath the shock of black hair. Why don't I have a girl? he wondered. Am I holding back, am I subconsciously waiting for Her? The dreams were coming more frequently now. Is she even real? Darien wondered. And what is her connection to me? Does my dream girl hold the secrets of my past?

He could see her almost as clearly waking as sleeping now; the dream had come so often, and had been the same in every detail. The Princess in her long white dress, a silhouette before a great crescent moon. Half-turning, looking over her shoulder towards him with longing and love and an implication of lives long entwined.

"Find me, Darien," she said. "Find the Imperial Silver Crystal."

"I will," Darien said to the darkening city below his window. "I will."

Then he caught himself. With a sniff of amusement at the way his imagination kept running away with him Darien turned from the window. He pushed his door shut and went into the kitchen, and the homely light of an open refrigerator banished the shadows of moonlight.

  
  
  
  
Amy arrived at Crystal Academy five minutes early. There as a new student there, a quiet, short young man with brown hair. He's cute, Amy thought. There were lots of new students joining the cram school lately. They were expanding rapidly; already they were looking for a bigger building.

"Hello, Amy," Miss Ada greeted her. "Have you admired our recent flyers?"

She hadn't seen them before. Right at the top was her own picture. "Be like Amy," it said. "First place winner in the National Practice Exams." Below that, "Experience our new computer-assisted learning software. Free samples available!"

She was flattered, but it made her a little uncomfortable as well. That was starting to become a familiar sensation. The new boy had just finished signing in. Amy went up to him. "Hi," she said. "I'm Amy."

"I know," he said. "I'm Greg. I..." He stopped, and his eyes widened as he recognized her. He turned away quickly and crossed to the other side of the room. Amy's face burned again. She turned on her heel and went to her own desk.

Amy settled into her seat, booted up the computer, and flipped in the Crystal Academy study disk. Not that she was using it that much, though. Lately she'd realized that plain old pen and paper just felt better. Around her the class filled. Students found their chairs, booted their learning software, and fell into reverie before their monitors.

Each day I come here, everyone looks more tired, Amy thought. Drained. Aren't they sleeping enough? Her memory flashed to a girl at Juuban, a cute little thing with long blond pigtails, snoring her way through lunch.

Maybe there was something in the water. Her mother worked pediatrics, but Amy had overheard her saying something to a co-worker over the phone. Something about the rising number of fatigue cases. And then, Amy had read in the paper about "...overworked young office-ladies collapsing at their desks."

No, it wouldn't be the water. Amy's logical mind quickly compared the pattern of the water service area with the "incidents" she'd seen or heard of. There was no correlation.

Listen to me, Amy thought. Her pencil tapped against her teeth. I'm taking this seriously, aren't I? But the math didn't lie. Many small things, themselves too small to notice. But together they made a pattern.

"You are right, Amy." Miss Ada spoke almost in her ear.

Amy jumped. She saw she'd written the words on her pad; "There is a pattern here."

"The question is, Amy, do you really want to know more? You see," and Miss Ada smiled, "Crystal Academy is a part of the pattern. And you are a part of us."

The smile became more mocking. "Your picture is on our flyer. Your reputation is tied to ours. Is it in your interest to jeopardize that fine academic standing of yours?"

"Someone should know." Amy spoke almost without meaning to.

"And you are going to tell them? Amy, who is going to listen to a fourteen-year old girl? Oh, certainly, you can prove your point with logic and math. But only to those that can listen and follow, my young genius. Only to me and you."

"So Crystal Academy is responsible?" Amy asked warily.

Miss Ada's smiled widened. "As I said before, are you sure you want to know?"

  
  
  
  
  
  
Next -- Juuban is a school under siege by evil forces, but one young genius is about to fight back. Stay right there and I'll show you!   
  



	2. Nightmares

Episode Two : Nightmares   
  
Greg tossed in his sleep. Not that he knew. In his mind's eye were visions of fire and death. An obscene army moved through the land, destroying, killing, savaging all in its path. Their Generals were monsters in truth, all but impervious to ordinary weapons. They laughed as energy streamed from their fingers, tearing stone and flesh alike.

A familiar face came. A girl in a blue uniform that matched her eyes, a glittering diadem about her brows. The monsters struck her down and moved on. Soon all Earth would lie under their yoke. They roared in triumph and he roared with them.

He was one of their Generals.

  
  
  
  
  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS

  
  
Episode Two: Nightmares

  
  
  
  
"Oh, what am I to do now?" The voice that came from the alley was tired and dejected. "I've failed my mission as Guardian; I have not been able to find the Moon Princess."

The voice sighed. "I can not find the Scouts, either. They are too well hidden in their new bodies. Beryl is free again; her Generals are already on Earth doing their evil. Without the power of the Scouts..." The voice broke off, unwilling to complete the thought.

There was silence again. The wind blew softly, shifting a few scraps of paper about. No one left the alley. No one but a forlorn, tired-looking black cat.

  
  
  
  
"I understand there have been several students sent home with unusual cases of extreme fatigue," Amy said.

"Are you feeling a little tired?" The school nurse asked in reply. "You don't look tired to me. But I can see how you might feel pressured to stay up to the academic standard you've set for yourself."

She turned to her desk and began writing something. "Now, if you like, I can speak to your mother for you. I know how some of these 'Examination Mamas' can be."

Amy bit back on a growing frustration. "I feel just fine, Mrs. Fujiwara. I am worried about the other students." Getting her mother involved was the last thing she wanted.

"Everyone knows school can be hard. And it doesn't seem to be getting any easier. All this bustle, bustle, to place high in the exams and get into the best schools."

Amy wondered if anyone actually listened any more. "I'm sorry I troubled you," she said. So much for getting help...

  
  
  
  
Amy got her lunch, and a book to study over it, out of her desk. She walked, less briskly than usual, through the hallways. By the time she got to the courtyard the groups had already formed, chatter and giggling loud about them. 

"There goes the Girl Genius," someone said, not meaning to be overheard.

"Stuck-up, isn't she?"

"Yeah, what a dweeb!"

Amy kept her back straight, her face forward. She found a seat on a brick planter in one of the quieter corners. She unwrapped the box lunch her mother had packed for her. Two tears fell on the lacquered surface.

This is absurd, she sniffled to herself. I can't believe I'm so upset.

It wasn't just the comments of the other girls. Juuban was in trouble. Already grades were slipping, and soon their standing would fall as well. People were being hurt. She'd heard, through that school grapevine that reached even an unpopular student, of a student's collapse so total they were rushed to Emergency.

And she couldn't tell anyone. Wouldn't be able to make them listen even if she tried. And whatever she did, whatever path events took, her own life-plan would suffer. She could feel Medical School admission, and her future as a doctor, slipping through her fingers like a puddle of mercury.

"Hey, are you the new student?" a cheery voice interrupted.

"Wha...?" Amy looked up from her misery.

That blond girl, the one with the incredible pigtails, was standing there beaming at her. "I'm Serena," the girl said. "Mind if we share lunch?"

"Sure," Amy said. "There's lots of room."

The girl dropped down beside her, and turned, her smile open and friendly. "They said you were stuck up, but I didn't believe them. I thought you might just be lonely, in a new school and all."

"Thanks." Amy smiled, herself. She couldn't help it; the girl's good humor was so infectious. "My name's Amy."

"I'm Serena. Oh, did I already say that? Say, what did you get for lunch? Nice lunch box!"

Amy took off the lid. "My mother packed this. I've got rice, and pickled radish, and two sweet rolls..."

The blond girl's stomach gurgled. "Ah, heh, heh," she held one hand to her head, "I guess I forgot mine, and..."

Amy laughed. "I'm not hungry today." She passed Serena box and chopsticks. In a moment rice was flying. "Hungry?" Amy asked, brushing a loose grain or two from her hair.

"Uh-huh!" Serena mumbled. "Hey Amy, you want to go to the arcade after school? They have the new Sailor V game. And Andrew -- he's the guy that runs the place after school -- he is really cute. A real hunkmeister. No, wait; forget I mentioned him! He's mine!"

Amy laughed again. It felt good to laugh after all this time. She felt the tightness in her chest finally starting to ease. "I'd love to," she told Serena. "But I have cram school tonight." She wrinkled her brow. "What is a 'Sailor V?'"

The blond girl was eager to explain. "She's a hero, see? Fighting evil in a sailor-suit! Some people say she isn't real, but I'm sure she really, really is!"

We could use someone like that around here, Amy thought. She looked fondly at her new friend. Someone has to do something, she thought. Someone has to defend innocents like Serena and that girl in the hallway.

"I'd love to, Serena," Amy said slowly. "But there's something I have to do first."

  
  
  
  
Amy opened the door of Crystal Academy with an unusual reluctance. I like learning, she thought. But what is cram school, really, but memorizing just for a test? Okay, so studying to the test is the Japanese way. But doesn't that foster rote answers, not real thought?

Miss Ada was sitting on the edge of her desk, legs crossed, eyes bright with excitement. "I have very good news for you, students!" she said. "Version 2.0 of our special learning software is now out. And you people get to use it before anyone else!"

She gestured to the box on her desk. "We have trial copies for all your brothers and sisters to experience. And do you have a friend who's failing at school? Or a classmate who just needs a little more help? Why, we'll give them a trial copy as well. We'd be happy to have them sign up with us!"

Amy held up the new disk. There was an almost palpable aura about the thing. An aura of pure evil. The danger she had sensed before never felt so real...or so near.

"Our software has been pre-loaded on your PC's," Miss Ada announced. "So boot up those computers and get to it!"

The class moved almost as one, powering up the desktop PC's, turning to the monitors. Miss Ada's eyes gleamed. Unseen by any but Amy, a vicious little smile came to Miss Ada's lips.

Amy started her computer, too. But not from the hard disk. She started from a special floppy she had prepared at Juuban's AV lab earlier that day. The simplified operating system she had created was good for only one thing -- to help her crack the Crystal Academy software and discover what they were really up to.

All about her, monitors came to life. They came to life in shifting, hypnotic patterns that played across the faces of the students, catching their eyes, and drawing their attention deeper and deeper into the screens. A low tone began from within the machines, slowly growing in volume as it rose in pitch.

As Amy watched in dawning horror the other students froze in place, trapped by the displays before them. A pale light was forming about each student, seemingly drawn from their bodies; a light that whirled and fragmented and was sucked into the waiting screens.

The sound rose higher, shivering into the back of the skull. A student gasped and slumped in his seat. Another fell, slowly, still caught in the evil glare.

"Clever, clever girl!" Miss Ada said. "You haven't been using your disk at all, have you! The hypnotic commands should have sapped your will to resist long ago."

"I don't need a disk to study!" Amy said. "I do just fine on my own!"

"Oh, I think they deserve a second look. Don't you?" She spun Amy around and pulled her out of her chair. Amy struggled but Miss Ada had her throat in one hand.

Amy felt herself being dragged, then thrown down into another chair violently enough to dislodge the student there. The hypnotic screen glared at her. Amy winced and tried to turn aside. Miss Ada forced her gaze towards the screen.

"Look at it, brat! I said, look at it!" Miss Ada was losing her composure. She shoved Amy's face against the computer screen, rubbed her cheek against the glass.

Amy felt whatever it was sucking at her, trying to take her life force. "I...can't...let it...win!" Amy struggled, resisting the pull with all her will.

"Resistance is futile, little girl. No human has the strength to resist the power of the Negaverse!"

Amy hung on, somehow, grimly determined not to give up no matter what. "You're...wrong!" she gasped.

Unseen by anyone in the glare that filled the room, a curious symbol began to glow on the forehead of the struggling girl. It glowed from within with a pure white light very different from the evil energies about it.

"You can not be resisting," Miss Ada snarled. "You are human, humans can not resist, therefore you are not." Her hand tightened about the girl's throat. "Perhaps you need a little more persuasion...my arm!"

Miss Ada screamed. And Amy was free! She threw herself back. Miss Ada was glaring at a small black cat that crouched hissing on the floor before her. She was holding one arm, and blood dripped from several long scratches.

Amy gasped, fighting to regain her breath. The room around her was lit with unholy light and yet another student slipped from her seat to fall in a boneless heap on the floor.

Miss Ada was starting to change. Her outlines blurred. Quick circuitry patterns lit across her in fitful ambers and reds. She grew in height and her skin took on a metallic sheen.

"Resistance is irrelevant. Cats are irrelevant. The Negaverse will soon control all."

There was a new fire in Amy's eyes. "Wanna bet?"

The robot shifted. Punch cards shot out of slots in its body. Amy threw herself to one side. The things were like razors! The sleeve of her school uniform was slashed in a dozen places. Behind where she had been, a supplies cabinet came apart in a shrieking of sliced-open steel.

The cat dived for cover, too. Their eyes met for a moment as they crouched behind their respective desks. This is no ordinary cat, Amy thought.

"Your behavior is illogical," ADA bit out in a vocoder voice.

Amy stopped crawling. "You're right," she said. She popped her head up from behind the teacher's desk, ready to dodge another wave of punch cards.

"There is more to thought than logic," she told ADA. "Just as there is more to learning than memorization."

ADA was faster than she thought. Treads whined and the robot shot down the center of the room towards Amy. 

Amy spoke quickly. "I used to live in Fukushima," she said. "It is so small they only have one manicurist. In fact, Naoko does the nails of everyone who does not do their own."

"So?" ADA was coming around the desk. "Manicurists are irrelevant." A metallic arm raised, then began whistling down towards the girl's head.

"Who does her nails?" Amy asked.

The arm stopped, just touching her hair. Amy ducked away as ADA spun around. ADA kept spinning, though, making a complete turn every second. "If Naoko does her nails, then she is one who does her own, that Naoko does not serve. But if she does not do her own, then only Naoko can do her nails. Who would be herself, and who she does not serve..."

Amy spared her only a glance. She had a paper clip in her hand, now, and even as she unfolded it she took a long slide across the floor. She slammed into the wall, adding more bruises to the scrapes and cuts. Then she jammed the heavy-duty paper clip into the wall outlet.

The short-circuit knocked her back. Every light in the room went dead and the computers died a sudden death. Even as the emergency lights clicked on Amy could see the glow of life-force gathering back into the bodies it belonged to.

"ADA!" she said. "My friend Serena is a terrible liar. In fact, she told me so herself. 'Amy,' she said, 'everything that I say is a lie.'"

The robot screeched in agony. Smoke was coming from it. "What is that thing?" A student stood on shaky legs.

"Trouble," Greg said. "Come on; we've got to evacuate the building."

"Gotcha." The student staggered over to another, shook him awake. Then they both moved on to the next desks. Greg came over to Amy and helped her to her feet.

"Thank you for saving everyone," he said. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry about how I acted, before."

Amy grabbed her books. Then she grabbed her hacker disk. On the way out the door she tripped the fire alarm for the building. The last she saw of ADA it was spinning like a top, belching smoke and wreathed with blue-white sparks.

They made it out of the building before the explosion. Well, Amy thought, it always worked for Captain Kirk!

  
  
  
  
  
  
Next -- Greg's secret revealed, more Serena and the first appearance of Tuxedo Mask! Stay right there, and I'll show you!

  
  



	3. Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

Episode Three : Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend   
  
A young lady sat by herself in the back of the 406 bus. She wore the flowing garb of a Shinto priestess or a Kendo practitioner. Although there was no practice sword or mask near her, one might be tempted to guess the latter; she had a poise and awareness about her that bespoke skill and supreme self-confidence. She was tall, with dark eyes, and dark hair that fell loose about her shoulders, and she was altogether striking. Her name was Raye.

  
  
  
  
  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS

  
  
Chapter Three: Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

  
  
  
  
"Ooh!" Serena cried. "You're dead meat this time, Sammy!" She stamped, her pigtails flying. "Sometimes I don't believe you're my brother!"

"I think that all the time," her younger brother said impudently.

"That's it, all right." Serena was furious. "You're not my real brother! You're not even a human being! Fairies must have came and swapped babies on us!"

"Look who's talking!" Sammy snorted. "What an airhead! You must have been left by fairies; no human being could sleep like you do. Or eat like you!"

"Oooh!" Serena was speechless. "Oooh!" She grabbed for a broom. Sammy ducked out the door.

"Sometimes...!" Serena got out at last. She put the broom down, slumped against the wall. "Sometimes..." She sighed deeply.

Wouldn't it be kind of neat if I was a changeling? I mean, I like my family and all. But what if I was really...oh...a princess of some far off land, raised as an ordinary person...?

She sighed again. "Oh, wouldn't that be just so romantic?"

  
  
  
  
"Greg," Amy said. "We have to talk."

He had been walking her home, and he hadn't been saying much. Now Amy faced him squarely. "I know you don't want to talk about this, Greg. But I need to know what is going on."

Greg sighed and shrugged; the same response he had made before. But there was a slope to his shoulders this time. Amy let him find a seat on a park bench, and waited. "I've seen you before," he said.

There was another long pause. Amy waited patiently.

"I have these visions, you see. They come true. I guess they do, I mean. Some of the things I saw in my visions happened later. Happened just the way I saw them."

Amy made a sound of encouragement.

"I've seen you. It's odd. Sometimes you know me, sometimes you don't. Sometimes I see you in this strange uniform."

"Uniform?" Amy echoed.

Greg waved his hand loosely. "Gloves, I think, a skirt the same blue as your eyes."

Amy blushed. "Why, thank you."

"No!" Greg said. "We can't be friends. Amy, there are monsters!"

"Monsters?"

"I've seen them. I've seen, Amy, I know..."

"Greg?" Amy knelt in front of him and took his hands in hers. She looked up into his face; the suffering was all too clear there. "You've seen...yourself?" she said softly, guessing.

Greg nodded. "The monsters kill me." Then he looked up, catching her eyes with his. "And if you are with me, Amy, they'll kill you too!"

"Oh, Greg!" Amy gripped his hands tighter. "I won't let them!"

Behind a trash basket a short distance away the strange black cat watched the two on the bench. "The boy is right," the cat said to itself. "Oh, I wish it wasn't so. But they are humans -- no match for Negaverse warriors."

"I found out something about them," Amy said. "I have this disk I made, you see. If I analyze it I may be able to figure out what they are doing, and how to stop them."

"Don't do it!" the cat pleaded softly.

"No, Amy," Greg said as an echo of their unseen observer. "Don't, don't get involved."

"I am involved." Amy stood. "I'll be careful."

"She had better be careful," the cat said to the darkness around it. "I am very afraid she won't be careful enough."

  
  
  
  
It was lunch time at Juuban Junior High. "Hey Amy!" Serena found her at her usual spot. "I'd like you to meet my friend Molly."

"Pleased to meet 'cha," the new girl said, in a strong Osaka accent. Amy stood and bowed.

"We're going to the jewelry store Molly's mom runs, after school." Serena threw herself down on the bench and tore into her lunch. "They're having a big sale!" she said around mouthfuls of rice dumpling. "You want to come with us?"

"Sure!" Amy said, starting into her own lunch.

Molly was a sweet girl, and Amy found herself quickly warming to her. After school was out they rode the subway together to the jewelry store.

There was a huge crowd outside. There was noise, perhaps too much noise. Amy felt a little tingle of awareness, a sensation that something was definitely not right.

The shop was bedlam inside. Boxes littered the floor, people shouted and fought over the bargains they were finding. Mrs. Baker was in the middle of the mob, shoving purchases into people's hands. A mousy assistant scurried back and forth trying to keep up.

"Ooh. Wow," Serena gasped, admiring a large pendant. "Is this real?"

"It's real zirconium," Molly said distractedly. "And those are real garnets around it." She pushed into the crowd towards her mother.

"Here, try this; I'm sure it will look lovely on you!" Mrs. Baker was pushing a ring at a young woman.

"But I don't..." she objected.

"You certainly do," she said without missing a beat.

"I don't make so much in my job...ah..."

"You can afford this."

"I'm still not sure."

"Okay, then half that."

"I'll take it, I'll take it!"

The assistant wrapped the boxed ring with a few deft moves and pushed it into the young woman's hand. "Now who's next?" Mrs. Baker cried.

"Is your mom always like this?" Serena muttered at Molly.

"And you, young lady. Ah, I have just the thing. A lovely pair of earrings. Going very cheap!"

"Mom!" Molly cried. "It's me! Your daughter!"

"Of course you are. I have something even better for you." Mrs. Baker snapped her fingers and her assistant produced a box, popping it open to reveal a large brooch speckled in green gems.

Serena's eyes grew huge. Molly reached slowly for the brooch. Amy was looking up, though -- looking up to see the look of evil triumph glowing in Mrs. Baker's eyes. She lunged and knocked the box aside before Molly's fingers could brush it. The brooch spun out and emerald dust shattered on the floor.

The mousy assistant stared at the ruined brooch. "How dare you!" he said, his face working. "HOW DARE YOU!" he shrieked.

And he began to grow.

  
  
  
  
"Vor millions uf years," what had been the assistant thundered in a powerful voice, "heat und pressure haf labored to produce these gemstones from rock und earth. The tools of the very skilled labored to release their beauty. Chust as Gem-Cutter vill release your souls vrom their ugly shells!"

He was huge. He was a monster. One eye was dominated by a giant gleaming jeweler's loupe. In his right hand a silver hammer glittered as he crouched, ready to attack.

"Serena, Molly, get out of here!" Amy yelled, pushing at them.

Gem-Cutter roared. A skitter of tiny chisels left his hand and buzzed through the air. "Try und do this in the back uf a Mercedes!" Gem-Cutter laughed.

Molly cried out as one hit her. "Uh, oh," Serena said. A chisel shattered floor in front of her. "Waah!" she yelled. She fell backwards and crashed into a girl with long black hair.

"Watch it!" yelled the girl.

Amy ducked behind a display cabinet. It shattered, glass splinters flying about her. She scrambled up and ran, trying to duck under another hail of chisels.

"Look out, Amy!" Serena screamed.

Amy saw the shadow at the same moment and turned. Gem-Cutter was moving at her with superhuman speed and the silver hammer was upraised over her. He laughed thunderously. "How many facets shall I give you?" The silver hammer blurred down at her head.

And a red rose stuck stem-first into the floor between them. Gem-Cutter's hammer spun out of his hand.

A man in a white mask and a tuxedo stood on one of the display cabinets. "Vas ist?" Gem-Cutter frowned.

The newcomer had dark curly hair under his silk top hat and an opera cape that fluttered behind him. He spoke in a strong, clear voice. "Gemstones are fragile and beautiful things," he said. "But they are also hard and cold. The real jewels here are these young lives, and I can not let you threaten them!"

"Oooh! What a dreamboat!"

"I saw him first!" yelled the girl with the black hair.

"Keep your head down, Serena!" Amy yelled crossly. Some people, she thought, shouldn't be let out of the house!

"Vun can not make der omelet without breaking eggs. Und vun can not create lasting beauty without sweat...and blood!" Gem-Cutter sent a swirl of his tiny chisels towards the young man.

His cane whirled, quick as a baton, knocking the glittering things out of the air. "Come on, Serena!" Amy urged.

"Molly's hurt!"

"I can't...I can't leave my mom!" Molly wailed.

"Amy, she's bleeding!" Suddenly Serena's panic left her. She whipped off her jacket, ripped off a sleeve, and wrapped it about Molly's bleeding arm. Then she draped the remains of the jacket over her friend's shoulders. She seemed as surprised by her actions as the others were.

"Thanks, Serena," Molly said in her slow soft accent. "Oh. I think I'm gonna keel ovah!"

She did. Then they carried her out of the shop.

  
  
  
  
The fight was not going well. Tuxedo Mask was only barely holding his own. There were too many gem-cutting tools flying at him; he was hard put to block or dodge them all. At least the shop had cleared.

The girls are out of danger now, he thought. It's time for me to break away. He feinted with his cape, dove from a display cabinet and rolled towards the door.

Only to find Gem-Cutter standing before him. "Zo. Now you try und retreat!"

"A warrior retreats only to attack!" Tuxedo Mask retorted. He moved on Gem-Cutter with a flurry of cane-work.

Gem-Cutter's loupe glowed red, then a lance of light tore from it. Tuxedo Mask barely dove clear in time. A ruby laser, he thought wryly; what else? It was beginning to look like he wasn't going to make it.

"Oh, no!" It was the girl with the blue hair again. She had crept back inside.

Tuxedo Mask bit back a rude word. Gem-Cutter turned to favor the girl with a darkly promising look before swinging towards him again.

"The light, over the counter...!" the girl cried.

Tuxedo looked where she was pointing; where an ornate lighting fixture hung over a glittering display of gems. Gem-Cutter's loupe was already glowing, about to launch its ruby lance at Tuxedo Mask, when a single rose left the young man's hand.

The heavy brass light fell dead center on the counter, crushing the displays to colorful powder below it. "No!" Gem-Cutter cried. "Noooo!" He gave a terrible sob and collapsed to his knees before the ruined gems.

The girl ducked from view. Tuxedo Mask slipped out the door and leapt for a handy roof himself. He was badly winded and a number of small cuts were stinging him. I feel bad about that, he thought as he left the site. Attacking something he loved like that. But then, he did the same to me...

  
  
  
  
  
  
Next -- trouble at the shrine, Department Six, Darien is confused and Serena gets a cat! Be there and I'll show you!

  
  



	4. Fire on the Mountain

Episode Four : Fire on the Mountain   
  
The policeman stepped out of his box and waved. "Hey, Yamamura! How's the promotion sitting?"

Kenjiro Yamamura ran a hand through his hair. "I'm still getting used to it. They sent me to Department 6."

"What's Department 6?"

"Durned if I know."

"Well, what do they have you doing?" the policeman asked his old friend.

"You've heard about the trouble at Juuban?"

"The haunted school? Yeah. Just outside my district, though."

"One of their students was involved in that jewelry store thing last week, too."

"The girl that went to the hospital?"

"She's okay," Kenjiro said. "They patched her up and sent her home. But her mother is still there. She's in some sort of coma, has the doctors baffled. And then there's that sickness that struck several of the shoppers who were there. They have three of them on iron tablets and observation for anemia."

"Like those anemia cases at Juuban?" the policeman asked.

"Don't spread that about, Zenji," Kenjiro cautioned. "It's far too early to start a general panic."

"This is an odd neighborhood," the policeman mused. "You know Feng Shui, that stuff? The whole neighborhood is supposed to be some kind of mystic nexus, and it centers on that school."

"So." Kenjiro sighed. "And anything odd happen this week?"

"Nothing but a stray cat," his friend laughed. "Seen this black stray for a good two weeks now. I should call Animal Control but I'm too soft-hearted."

"Back to work for me," Kenjiro said with a laugh. "I left the Department car around the corner."

"Good luck with your investigation," the patrolman said. Then he saluted. "Detective."

  
  
  
  
  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS

  
  
Episode Four: Fire on the Mountain

  
  
  
  
Darien was worried. He remembered too well waking in a sudden sweat with vivid dreams just starting to fade. He had staggered out of bed that morning feeling like he hadn't slept at all. Then he discovered the cut on his cheek.

For a moment he wondered if he'd cut himself shaving. But he didn't shave his legs. Or the other places he spent a few minutes of iodine and bandages on. When he came back out of the bathroom he discovered the roses he had bought were missing from their vase -- but his dress shoes were neatly shined.

Darien sighed now, giving the pleasant day a distrustful look. That had been a week ago and nothing similar had happened since. Maybe it had just been stress. "Amnesia I've lived with all my life," he said to himself. "Sleepwalking I can do without." He thought about the missing roses again. "What could I have been up to?"

  
  
  
  
They met at a soda shop within the Crown Arcade. "Serena," Amy said, "There's a cat on your shoulder."

"I found her. I call her Luna. See that spot on her forehead?"

"Wait a minute," Amy said. "I know this cat. You're that cat that rescued me, aren't you?"

"Meow," Luna said. She looked guilelessly back at Amy.

"Huh," Amy said, letting the matter be for the moment.

"You want to window shop, or are we going to the arcade?"

"Actually," Amy said, "I have something to do this afternoon."

"Not studying!" Serena moaned.

Drat, Amy thought. I don't want to lie to Serena. In the Crystal Academy disk she'd hacked had been reference to the "Sixth Road of Sendai Hill." Only five roads met there now, but Amy had turned up some old legends. She meant to ask around at the Shinto Shrine there.

"I was going to go to the Hikawa Shrine," she told Serena. "Some girls in our class have been getting good-luck charms there to help them with their grades." It was the truth, though it was not her own errand.

"Ooh." Serena's ears pricked up. "Do you think that would work for me?" She jumped to her feet. "Geography test, here I come!"

Amy dropped her head in chagrin. Well, maybe this time Serena wouldn't be a trouble magnet...

  
  
  
  
The cherry trees were in full bloom, almost hiding the long stairs up from the bus stop and the tall torii gate into the shrine. Within was a collection of traditional wooden buildings surrounded by the quiet greens and browns of oak and maple. Some of the older trees were girded with straw rope hung with zig-zag paper streamers; a mark of powerful kami.

"Whew," Serena said. "I'm winded from all those stairs. Hey, this place is neat! Look, Amy, some girls from our school! Oh, is that one of the priests?"

The small balding man in old-fashioned dress bustled up to them, beaming broadly from under thick white eyebrows. "Welcome, young ladies!" he chirruped. "Welcome!"

"Thank you," Amy bowed deeply. "It's our first visit," she told him.

"Excellent, excellent. Come back again, and often, won't you?"

Amy didn't know what to say, so she bowed again. The old man bustled off towards another group of visitors.

Over by the fence a shrine priestess was sweeping. "Amy, do you see that girl?" Serena pointed. "Oh, she's so beautiful!"

The girl was striking; long black hair, dark eyes, a long body that suited the flowing lines of her robes. She was also familiar. Amy realized she had been near them at the jewelry store. Serena had even bumped into her.

The girl seemed to notice their gaze. She looked their way in a calm challenge. Dead leaves swirled in a sudden gust about her feet and two black ravens dropped from the sky to alight on her shoulders.

"Oh!" Serena bit her knuckles.

Amy felt a bit like doing the same. "Stay out of trouble, will you?" she told Serena. "I'm going to have a look around."

  
  
  
  
Raye Hino knelt before the flame burning near the heart of the shrine. The Miko -- the priestesses of a Shinto shrine -- were even today respected for their spiritual affinity. Back in the ancient traditions (and the Hino line went very, very far back) their powers were reputed to be greater still.

Her long black hair flew wild about her face as she chanted in a low voice, and the firelight threw jagged shadows across the dark wooden walls.

Her visions, the visions that came to her in meditation, had in recent weeks undergone a disturbing change. She sensed evil forces forming, growing in power. She devoted more and more time to her meditations, now, trying to understand this change in her visions. Was this something changing within her? Some dark turn to her own psyche? Or was this truly something new and dangerous come to the world about her?

Raye bowed before the fire, hands held in the mystical gestures that would concentrate her vision. "Help me, spirits," she chanted to the kami of the shrine. "Help me see what evil threatens this place."

The smoke twisted and spiraled until she could see shapes within it. "This shrine? There is evil here?" She gestured again, trying to see more clearly.

Something was here. Something new, something very powerful, had come to the shrine today. And that something was now...behind her!

"Who's there?" Raye demanded. "Show yourself!"

The figure moved. "Stop right there!" Raye cried. She spun to her feet and reached into her sleeve.

A projectile hurtled past her. It was a mop bucket. It hit the brazier in a terrible hissing and the room filled with white smoke. Raye rubbed at her eyes, trying to see. "I think I'm in trouble," she said.

  
  
  
  
Amy wasn't sure what the priestess had been up to. Putting the lights out had seemed the prudent thing to do. But she knows this shrine very well, Amy thought wryly. I'm a lot more likely to get disoriented than she is.

She walked gingerly forward, hoping she was moving along the wall towards the door. There was an excitement in her of having a chance to come to grips with one of the mysterious attackers. It was well-tempered with the realization that the last two had been rather too tough for her to handle alone.

She bumped into something that breathed.

Amy grabbed with desperation, managed to find a head, shifted her hands to the other's throat. A pair of hands scratched at hers in the dark, then went unerringly to a target of their own. Amy felt the pressure behind her eyes as her neck was squashed for the second time that week.

It had turned in a moment into a contest of pure strength and will. Amy knew she was naturally strong, perhaps stronger than most of the girls in her class. But whoever this was had a steely strength of her own.

Their feet scuffled against the wooden floor. Amy's back hit the wall, and they rolled across it, slamming first one of them then the other. Bright flashes and fireworks were starting to play in Amy's vision. Against the roaring in her ears she heard a voice shouting;

"Stop it! Stop fighting, both of you! Amy, she's not from the Negaverse!"

In one last burst of strength Amy thrust the other person away. She fell, hard, back against the wall.

  
  
  
  
Raye staggered back, holding her throat. What was this thing? And what had spoken? Okay, this was enough playing around. 

She yanked an ofuda from the wide sleeves of her Miko garb, unrolled it with a snap of her wrist, and made a quick gesture over it. She squinted, saw the movement in the smoke, and dove in.

"Evil Spirits, I banish you!" she cried, and pasted the ofuda cleanly on the thing's forehead.

The thing moaned and fell over with a distinctly un-demonic thump. Raye crawled over, feeling her way along the floor. She came to an ankle. Felt pleated skirt, then bows, then pigtails.

There was no doubt about it. She'd just tried to dispel a junior high girl.

  
  
  
  
Serena lay under a quilt in the old-style wooden house just off the shrine that Raye and her grandfather shared. "If you hadn't been sneaking around..!" Raye blazed. Then she hung her head again. "She'll be fine. In fact, she should have woken up already!"

"And how is the young lady?" Grandfather bustled in, beaming. "I made rice dumplings for everyone!"

"Rice dumplings!" Serena sat bolt upright. "Mm, hmmm!"

"So, Serena," Amy said. She tried to get her friend's attention; the dumplings were fierce competition. "What did you mean by saying "She's not from the Negaverse?"

"Gblm curswmnb," Serena said.

"Serena..!"

"Where did you find this airhead?" Raye asked.

"Inmambl gblms!" Serena said. Her eyes filled with tears.

"Now, don't you start on her, Raye!" Amy said crossly. "I'm still not so sure about you!"

Serena swallowed convulsively. "It wasn't me. What's a Negaverse, anyway?" She beamed. "Are there any more?"

Amy hung her head. Then she looked thoughtful. "So Serena didn't say anything, and Raye and I couldn't -- that's odd."

"What?"

"I didn't know cats could sweat." They all looked at Serena's cat.

"Oh, all right," the cat said. "Yes, I told you to stop fighting. For all the good it seems to have done. Honestly, how you expect to fight the Negaverse when you can't spend five minutes without fighting among yourselves..."

"Raye hit me too hard! Raye hit me too hard! I'm hearing voices!"

"I didn't hit you, you dweeb! I blessed you. If you ever reach satori you'll have me to thank!"

"Calm down, both of you!"

"This is just what I was talking about," the cat lectured. "You girls are going to have to buckle down and concentrate if you intend to continue with this mad adventure of yours..."

"How do you turn her off?" Serena muttered. She grabbed Luna and swung her up over her head. "Is there an off switch?"

"Put me down!" the cat said crossly. "I am not a toy. I am a Guardian from the Moon Kingdom -- and far more experienced than any of you, I might add."

"Did someone ask for more rice dumplings? And what would you like?"

"Milk, thank you," Luna told Grandfather. He beamed and disappeared again.

"Is everyone but me just totally insane? You're talking to my cat! Raye is writing poems and sticking them on people's foreheads! And some ugly with a weirdo accent tore up Molly's mom's shop and now Molly is hurt!"

"Serena, please." Luna had a perfect voice for lecturing; she sounded just like a school teacher. "It is really very simple."

She took a deep breath. "Girls, your world is being invaded."

  
  
  
  
  
  
Next --The Negaverse is on a roll and their deadliest attack yet is aimed right at Raye. Detective Yamamura scratches his head at the mystery of the missing buses and Luna has a few choice words. Can Kitty Magic be far behind? A special two-parter!

  
  



	5. Highway to Hell

Episode Five : Highway to Hell   
  


The fortress was a spire of black rock, looming over the stark landscape and casting long shadows when the blue and red spitfires fitfully lit the gloomy sky. The throne room was a huge cavern, vaulted roof lost in the darkness; most of the light came from the darkly glowing pool at the center.

Before the pool, on a throne of dark stone, was the coldly beautiful Queen.

"Warrior Jadeite!" Her voice was harshened by power, and by the weight of thousands of years of conquest and war. "I am angered by your repeated failures. Your weak servants prove too easily distracted, and much of the energy you promised the Negaverse has been lost!"

"My Queen!" The man bowed quickly, bending to one knee. He had a narrow, clever face and wore a military-style uniform; tunic and trousers trimmed with red, and calf-length boots.

"I should punish you now," the Queen told him, in a more thoughtful tone of voice. "But it seems we have an enemy on Earth. You may redeem yourself by destroying her."

"Of course, My Queen." Jadeite looked up, his expression guileless. If he had noticed the Queen's choice of pronoun he did not mention it. "That task is almost complete," he said instead. "I have set a trap, My Queen. And as a side benefit, the trap gathers lots of energy. Energy, you could say, by the busload."

"See to it this plan of yours works," the Queen said coldly. "I will not tolerate another failure."

"Enough of this!" said a woman with a blond ponytail and the same red-on-gray uniform. "Send me to Earth, Queen Beryl! You won't see any more of this namby-pamby pussyfooting around!"

"Send me," argued a smooth male voice. "I'll have those humans eating out of my hand."

"Enough, my Generals!" Thunder rolled from the black pool behind the Queen, but her tone was lighter than it had been, and a trace of a smile was on her lips. "Your turn will come," she said more quietly.

Her hands moved across the crystal ball before her. "The day draws closer," she said almost to herself. "The barriers weaken more with every second. Soon, the prize we have been denied for so long will be within our grasp..."

  
  
  
  
  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS

  
  
Episode Five: Highway to Hell

  
  
  
  
"INVASION?" Serena leapt to her feet. "Where! Who? What! Where?" She looked wildly about.

Amy ducked a flying pigtail. "Serena!"

"Calm down, please!" Luna said crossly. "Stop all this shouting! The Negaverse can't invade yet. Not, at least, until they have gathered enough energy to break down the inter-dimensional barriers."

Energy, Amy thought. The energy of young people. Was that what was happening at Crystal Academy? But what was their plan at Osa-P?

"Those monsters are from another dimension!?" Serena looked around as if expecting one to materialize from one of the nearby walls.

"Yes, Serena!" Luna said, exasperated. "Now please sit down!"

"O-okay," Serena said. She sat down lightly, quite ready to fly up again. Or to duck for cover under the low kotatsu table. "So they have talking cats in this Negaverse place, eh?"

Luna sighed. "I am a Guardian of the Moon Kingdom. I was born in the Silver Millennium, a time of peace and harmony. It was then that the Negaverse was first discovered. It was then that Queen Beryl's troops first attacked."

"So the Negaverse lost that time, huh?"

Serena seemed to be carrying the conversation. Amy let her; for once she was asking all the right questions. 

Luna's head sagged in sorrow. "No," she said sadly. "Not in so many words."

"Huh?"

Amy echoed her friend. "Huh?" she said.

"The Negaverse was sealed away again, but at terrible cost. The Moon Kingdom was destroyed. The Silver Millennium ended. And the Royal Family..."

"HEY!" Raye shouted. She jumped to her feet. In a moment she had slipped into her sandals and was out the door.

Amy twisted to see. Through the open door she saw Raye's grandfather in conversation with a somehow official-looking man.

"Maybe we should..." Serena said, popping up from the tatami. She almost bumped heads with Amy as they both reached for their school shoes, then they were running out to the main yard of the shrine to join their friend.

"Why do you keep calling it the 'Shrine Bus?'" Raye was saying angrily. "It just stops here. It stops lots of other places, too. This doesn't have anything to do with us!"

"What happened?" Amy asked.

The middle-aged man who Raye had been yelling at put a hand to his head in embarrassment. He had close-cropped hair already going to gray and his jacket and sensible shoes looked just a little too much like a uniform. 

"Kenjiro Yamamura, Detective-Inspector, Prefectural Police," he introduced himself. "You are friends of Miss Hino?" They nodded. "As Miss Hino pointed out," he offered, "this probably has nothing to do with the shrine. I was just making inquiries."

Amy knew all about polite lies and she was having none of it. "What happened?" she asked again, firmly.

Kenjiro's hand went to his head again. "The bus vanished. About an hour ago; just after the Sendai Hill stop."

Raye seemed about to flare up again. "A bus?" Amy pressed quickly.

"A bus...ah...full of passengers. Mostly visitors to the shrine."

The shock hit them all at about the same moment. "Amy, we had schoolmates on that bus!" Serena said. 

Amy whirled. "Luna, what do you..." Just in time she stopped herself. Or maybe not in time. The detective was looking at her. Although he said nothing Amy sensed the mind behind the affable face was making some interesting observations.

"You go to Juuban Junior High, don't you," he said thoughtfully.

"I don't," Raye said.

"I just transferred in," Amy said quickly. She wasn't ready to share her findings with outsiders. Not again, at any rate. She could just hear the conversation; "My cram school teacher is an alien trying to take over the world. Of course I'm sure; just ask my friend's cat!"

More importantly, she didn't want to get Raye in trouble. Her mind flashed to the fabled sixth road of Sendai Hill. She wasn't sure there was a connection to this missing bus, though. And the last thing Raye needed was to have a few dozen cops descend on the shrine, tearing it up in a search for clues.

Detective Yamamura still looked thoughtful. He didn't ask any more questions, though. "I'm sure it will all turn out well," he said at last. "Your friends will be back in school tomorrow as if nothing had happened."

Amy could tell his assurances sounded false even to him. 

  
  
  
  
"They say if you ride the Sendai Hill bus at exactly 6:00 you'll never return!" said the geeky guy with the thick coke-bottle glasses. "They call it a Hell Heist!"

"Oh, Melvin!" one of the girls said. 

"It's true, though. I heard it myself!" another girl said excitedly.

Amy pushed passed the group, almost not noticing them in her own pre-occupation. Juuban's rumor mill was working overtime. The police had made no progress in finding the missing bus, or the missing students.

And Amy had run out of ideas. She needed to talk to Luna again and see if there might be some weakness this Negaverse had, some way they could be stopped. As it was, she didn't even know enough to make it worth taking it to the police, even that detective that had been poking around the Hikawa shrine.

Time was running out.

As soon as classes were over she joined Serena. Molly was at the hospital every day, looking after her mom, and Serena thought she could use some friends about now.

"We're here to see Molly?" Serena said to the receptionist in the crisply starched uniform.

"Miss Osaka is currently in intensive care."

"Wha...?" Serena gasped. Amy joined her at the desk.

The receptionist took in their look of shock. "You didn't know, then? Are you friends of hers from school?" They both nodded. "Tell you what. You can visit, but just for a moment. Don't touch anything. If you have some flowers you can leave them with me at the desk."

Molly was very pale and quiet and wasn't moving at all; her eyes were closed above the oxygen mask. "She collapsed on the street." The nurse put aside "Studies in Gastro-enterology" and stood to greet them.

"Is she..."

"She is very weak." The nurse hesitated a long moment, then decided to be completely frank. "We don't know what it is.

"Is she...is she gonna make it?" Serena's voice was a strangled whisper.

"She's a very strong young woman," the nurse said calmly. "Her chances are excellent."

"Amy?"

Distantly, Amy was aware of Serena tugging at her sleeve. She even found a space to be surprised at Serena's self-control. Perhaps Serena only did the cry-baby act over little things. When it was important enough, she didn't waste time in hysterics. 

"Amy?" Serena said again, worried.

"It stops now," Amy said simply. And she walked from the room.

  
  
  
  
Serena had never seen her friend like this. Someone who didn't know Amy well might think she was just sort of thinking. But she was angry, really angry. There was ice in her eyes.

Serena turned around. "Oh, Molly," She told their friend. "Please, please get better." Then she twisted about again. The door was already closing behind Amy. She was so frightened for her friend. Amy was so angry, Serena didn't know what she might do. "Hey!" Serena said. "Hey, wait for me!"

  
  
  
  
"We have always been supporters of this shrine," the middle-aged woman was saying.

Raye merely nodded, politely but definitely, wishing the woman would get to the point.

The woman finally made up her mind to speak. "We want you to find our Mimi," she said in a rush.

"Huh?" Raye blinked. "You mean she ran...she wasn't on that bus, was she?"

"We want you to find her," the woman said again, underlining it. When Raye still didn't respond she spelled it out. "With your visions."

"My visions?" Raye had found things before for members of the shrine. Lost keys, lost plane tickets, once even a long-lost brother. But it wasn't... "It isn't like that," she said. "My visions don't just come like turning on a tap. You'd be better off going to the police."

"Our family has been coming to this shrine for generations," the woman said. It came across as oddly threatening, and Raye bristled.

"Go to the police," Raye said again. "I can't help you."

"Our son has always carried the mikoshi, and just last winter I brought a full cord of wood for your fires!" The woman was warming up. "You could help, but you won't!" Her voice rose higher. "I wouldn't be surprised if your family had something to do with it themselves!"

"Get out!" Raye screamed. "Go away and leave us alone!"

She turned, red-faced and trembling with anger, and ran with unsteady feet out of the courtyard. Into the main building she plunged, heading blindly for the center of the shrine, and she flung herself down before the flame.

No comfort was for her there. Into her sight came images of the laughing little girl that visited each Tuesday. She'd always have a handful of jellybeans she'd bought just down the road, and she'd offer one to Raye and then to her two ravens. Raye could even see the expression in Deimos' eyes as the bird gravely took a jellybean from the girl's very hand before flapping away to eat in dignified peace. 

Ravens were not the only creatures Mimi charmed. Raye had always saved a smile for the girl, on even the most harried and hectic festival day. It wasn't right that something terrible could happen to a child with such a lovely soul.

Raye stared blankly into the flame, thinking of her new friends and the strange talking cat they brought with them. This Negaverse, whatever it was, was an evil more pure and terrible than anything she could have imagined.

Within the flames, Amy smiled at her then turned to the bus that had just arrived. A distant clock struck six times. The doors of the bus opened to darkness and a pair of malevolent yellow eyes.

"No!" Raye leapt up from the fire. "My friends are in trouble!" The vision had been startlingly clear.

In that moment the path before her became clear. Was she just a schoolgirl, a girl who happened to live at a shrine with her grandfather? Then she should turn away and go back to sweeping up and doing homework.

But if she was truly a Miko, a Shinto Priestess, then these visions were her heritage and her charge. She needed to accept these visions, as frightening as they might be. And she needed to accept their guidance and act upon them.

Raye hurried from the room. It was almost six and she had a bus to catch.

  
  
  
  
Serena had trouble keeping up with Amy. She was afraid for her friend; afraid Amy would let her anger blind her, and get in serious trouble. They rode the bus in silence out to Sendai Hill and got out where the five roads met.

Serena was up halfway to the stairs when she realized Amy wasn't with her. "Huh?" She turned herself around. Another bus was just pulling in, and Amy had her transit pass out.

"But we just got here..." Serena was explaining as she trotted back to Amy. She darted a look at her watch. "It's only six and we don't have to be home until..."

It took a while for the connection to circle through her head. "A Hell Heist!" she yelled as she got it. "Amy!" 

Her friend was gone. Amy had already gotten on the bus.

"I, uh..." Serena said. Someone brushed past her and spun her around again. "Raye?"

"Oh, concentrate, you dweeb! Did Amy get on that bus or not?"

"Yeah, but..!"

Raye was through the doors without a look back. 

"Oh!" Serena gnawed on a knuckle. "They both got on!" she said. She took a few steps closer. The paper-faced driver turned slowly and favored her with a mean-looking smile. "Urgh!" Serena said.

She craned her neck, trying to see into the bus and find the two friends she had in there. Enough, she thought. Less thinking and more action! Her feet were already moving. Well before she had a chance to think better of it her feet had carried her into the ordinary-looking yellow bus. 

  
  
  
  
She was in danger! 

Tuxedo Mask broke into a run. He crossed the main yard of the Hikawa shrine in a moment. He took the flight of stone stairs in a single long leap, cape fluttering behind him.

A yellow bus had left the stop and was just down the street, moving fast. The air was flickering with green and violet energies ahead of it. Tuxedo Mask ran faster. 

A black disk formed in the flickering and crackling. As he watched in horror the moving bus touched the disk. The parts that touched vanished as if passing into infinitely dark shadow. 

The entire bus was being sucked out of this dimension, sent hurtling off to somewhere else!   
  
  
  
Serena screamed. Raye grabbed her hand and she squeezed back hard. The bus driver turned towards the frightened girls, eyes red and gleaming in her pale face. "Passengers will please be seated. Thank you for riding with Negaverse Transit. Next stop...HELL!"

  
  
  
  
NEXT -- The stunning conclusion to this two-parter!   
  



	6. Jadeite is Quenched

Search for the Moon Princess: Ep. Six   
  
"What do you mean, you got there too late?" Yamamura stuck a finger in his other ear. He had been visiting at a small district police station when his man's call was relayed to him. The amount of noise six cops and a couple of civilians could make in a small office was astounding.

"I saw it vanish!" the plain-clothes man said, his voice high. "Right in front of me! I was going to ride it, like you said, keep an eye out for anything unusual. Noguchi had just dropped me off when I saw this strange light down the street. I watched it, sir! I watched it get sucked off into space!"

This whole thing was getting out of control. "Silence!" Kenjiro Yamamura shouted.

The police station took on a shocked hush.

"Department 6." Yamamura took out his card, the card he was told to use only in an emergency. "I want an APB put out immediately. I want every car, every foot patrolman you have available blocking off this area, on all five roads down from Sendai Hill. And I need that office, there, to make some secure phone calls."

He was very surprised to find they did exactly as he said.

  
  
  
  
  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS

  
  
Episode Six: Jadeite is Quenched

  
  
The sky was a dark, troubled blue. It was the sky as seen from a spy plane five miles up. The air was thin and cold and it blew pitilessly across the barren ground.

The horizon itself was far too near, adding to the sense of a place very barren, very empty, and very isolated. The landscape was an alien mix of odd-shaped rocks, deep craters, and a powdery reddish ground.

A wide shallow crater had a broken ring-wall like a ring of rotten teeth. The crater floor was rough, blasted by the elements and by more of the impacts that had formed the crater. Jammed sideways, at the ends of long skid-marks like fresh wounds in the reddish dust, were two chubby yellow buses.

  
  
  
  
The bus had hit hard. Serena opened her eyes to darkness. She was on the floor, the floor was tilted sideways, and her nose hurt. After rubbing it for a while she decided it wasn't broken. She'd landed face-first on something that felt like gravel. She felt around in the darkness. It was a pizza. Someone's dinner, probably, frozen solid and hard as a rock.

She groaned softly and staggered upright. Then almost fell against one of the windows -- the bus was sitting a little sideways. Outside it was really weird. All dark and blue-lit and full of nothing but rocks and craters like Mars or something. The sky was dark like it was evening outside but there was no moon. There were no stars, either, but for some reason it really bothered her that there was no moon.

Serena backed away from the window. Her hand landed on something soft. A girl, wearing the same uniform she was. "Michelle?" Serena whispered. The girl was slumped bonelessly in the seat. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dim blue lighting she could see the bus was full of passengers, mostly young, all collapsed where they had been sitting and all quite motionless.

"Are they...are they all dead?" Serena tried to cram her knuckles in her mouth.

"Serena!" It was Raye that whispered, intensely. "They're just sleeping! Something drained all of their energy." The other girl crept silently from the front of the bus and back to her.

"Oh, Raye!" Serena grabbed her and held on tight. "Is Amy all right, too?"

"She took Luna and went outside to try to figure out where we are." There was a tremor in Raye's voice; she wasn't taking it much better than Serena was. "You were out for a while, Serena."

"Oh, Raye! I'm glad you're here! No, I don't mean I'm glad you're in trouble too! I just meant I'm glad we have you along."

"What are you talking about, Serena?"

Raye was trying to sound snide, but it hadn't worked. There really was a question in her voice. What they had been through had at least temporarily lowered the girl's barriers. Serena was surprised to see that under the poise and the fiery temper was someone a bit scared, a bit uncertain, and not a little bit lonely.

"Hey, uh, Raye?" Serena said. "You want to be friends?"

"With me?" There was more than a bit of bitterness in her reply.

"Huh?" Serena hunched over until she could see the other girl's face. "What do you mean?"

"I'm the Hino girl," Raye said. "Living up in that creepy shrine with her strange grandfather. Doing all sorts of funny rituals and stuff."

"I think you're great," Serena said stoutly. "You're a for-real shrine priestess -- I'll bet you know all kinds of stuff! And the way your grandfather is, I bet you run the place yourself! And then, you are so beautiful. The way you look, the way you move, you're like a princess!"

"Serena!" Raye protested. Her cheeks went pink.

"Friends?" Serena stuck out her hand.

Raye hesitated. Then she took it firmly. "Friends," she said. In her eyes was still wonderment; that someone believed in her. And that she need never again be lonely.

  
  
  
  
"Amy!" Luna chided, bouncing over rocks and trying to keep up with the girl. "Please be careful!"

They made an odd picture; a girl in sailor-suit school costume and a small black cat hiking across a foreboding extra-terrestrial landscape. "I'm pretty sure I know where we are," Amy told the cat. "And it isn't good."

"Of course it isn't good! The Negaverse sent us here, and the Negaverse is pure evil. We're too exposed out here, Amy! Ooh! Talking to you is just like talking to Serena!"

"Just a little further. I have a little theory I'd like to test."

"We should go back to the buses. Oh. There they are. How did they get in front of us?"

"We just walked around the world," Amy said grimly. "This place is even smaller than it looks."

"Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide!" Hovering in mid-air not ten feet away was a young man with very old eyes. He had a narrow, clever face below blond hair and his uniform tunic was trimmed in red. He laughed. "Figured out what this is, yet, human girl?"

"A pocket universe," Amy said slowly. "You space-warped those two buses into a pocket universe."

The Negaverse general touched down lightly, on a large boulder that allowed him to loom over Amy. "You are all alone here, human girl. No where to run to. No one to aid you."

His every word sent a chill through Amy. But that didn't stop her mind from working. He's trying to frighten me, she thought. Why? He already has me in his power. Is it just he is a natural bully? Her eyes narrowed. Or perhaps there is something else...

"I stopped that monster of yours, at Crystal Academy," she told the alien.

She was pleased by the reaction she got. He didn't move from his perch, but there was a tensing of his muscles as if he would draw back. "I am General Jadeite, in the service of Beryl, Queen of the Negaverse," he said. "And you are?"

"On Earth, they know me as Amy Mizuno." Amy took the bluff and ran with it. With any luck she'd learn something about them by probing their fears. With even more luck she'd live to tell someone else.

"Amy?" Luna was staring at her. Apparently Moon Kingdom Guardians were bred for literal-mindedness.

Jadeite stared at her for a long moment, open fear in his eyes. Then he started to laugh. He laughed long and hard while Amy stood there, cheeks red, clenching her fists helplessly. 

"Very good," Jadeite said at last. "Very, very good." His smile dropped. "But not very convincing. Let me explain to you the seriousness of your situation."

Lightning gathered from his hands then shot out in a jagged bolt. The impact slammed her off her feet, smashing her backwards against a boulder as sparks cascaded around her.

  
  
  
  
"Where's our friend!" Raye demanded of the pale-faced bus driver.

"Watch out, Raye; she looks mean!"

In answer the black-haired Shinto priestess brought her hands in front in a karate stance. "I'm ready for her! Now tell us what happened to Amy if you know what's good for you!"

The bus driver chuckled evilly. "Better worry about yourselves, children." And she started to grow.

"I have a baaad feeling about this," Serena muttered. She backed up towards the bus they had just exited.

Raye took a cautious step back as well. The bus driver was taller now, gaunt enough to be skeletal, with red eyes gleaming in a paper-white face. On her head sat a little blue pillbox hat, and in her hand was an old-style ticket punch. A ticket punch about eight feet in length!

"Last stop, girls!" the thing said. Paradoxically, it spoke in the high girlish "Nightingale" tones of pre-recorded announcements and public service messages. "I'm going to punch your tickets!"

"Eeee!" Serena said. She stumbled sideways just as the ticket punch slammed into the ground where she'd been. It left two neat circular holes in a big rock.

Raye kicked the monster in the back. It turned from Serena and whirled on the black-haired girl instead. Raye managed to block, but the force of the thing's blow threw her across the rough ground. She groaned, pulled herself up to face the next attack.

"Oh, no!" Serena cried. She picked up a rock and threw it. "Stop picking on Raye, you meany!" The rock missed. But the monster turned its weapon in mid-air -- just before it would have canceled Raye.

"Good!" Serena said. The monster continued its turn and headed towards her, ticket punch raised high. "I think that's good." At that moment she realized there was something in her other hand, something she must have dragged off the bus with her...

  
  
  
  
"I'd love to take longer at this," Jadeite said. "But you humans are just too fragile. You just don't last." He frowned distantly in effort as he sent another lightning bolt crashing around the fallen girl. Amy cried out as the energy cascaded about her. Her back arched in pain.

Luna crouched, looking for an opening. Defeat was in every line of her body. She had failed utterly. The Negaverse was winning free. The Princess was nowhere to be found. And the human children she had gotten involved were being killed before her very eyes.

From the direction of the buses came a long wail of a scream. Serena.

And Amy's eyes opened again. Her fingers clenched, and she pressed against the ground, pushing herself up to face the Negaverse General squarely. A new determination shone from her eyes. And light shone, too, from a curious symbol. A symbol that had formed on the girl's forehead, right above her determined eyes.

"It..it can't be! After all this time!" Luna was staring at the glowing symbol. Maybe, maybe they had a chance after all! If she acted now, and her if her timing was perfect...

The cat leapt into the air. "KITTY MAGIC!" she cried, turning a neat backflip. The air sparkled with power and a small golden pen formed in mid-air then fell to the ground.

"Huh?" Jadeite half-turned towards the light. "What was that?" His attention was off Amy for a moment.

She pushed up and her legs whipped around. With every ounce of strength in her body she kicked out -- and caught the Negaverse General behind the knees. He staggered, almost falling.

"Ahh!" He snarled. "You'll pay for that!"

At that moment Luna hit him. "Use the pen, Amy!" She clawed at Jadeite's face like a small four-footed cyclone. "Use it now!"

The Negaverse General got a good grip at last and hurled Luna off. The cat struck a rock a good thirty feet away and slid, limply, to the ground.

But Amy now had the golden pen in her hands.

  
  
  
  
Serena was backed up against the bus. "I don't like this ride!" She trembled.

"I'm sorry, your transfer is no longer valid. Please do not insert items other than tokens in the turnstiles." The thing that had been the bus driver mocked her in its treacle-ly sweet voice. It raised the huge ticket punch high. Began the sweeping downward arc that would end when there were two Serenas.

And lost its weapon to a bright red rose. "I say these girls ride free!" Tuxedo Mask cried from where he stood on top of the bus.

"Ooh!" Serena cried in adoration.

He leapt down from his perch, cape fluttering behind him. He looked awful. He looked like he had caught hold of a bumper and been dragged two hundred yards across rocky ground, been thrown into a boulder and only recently regained consciousness. He felt like it, too.

"Stand clear of the doors!" the monster said sweetly. Whatever it did, it was too fast for the young man to see, or to block. He hit hard and skidded across the hard ground, landing not far from Raye. "And as for you..." the monster said, turning back towards Serena.

It didn't quite complete the turn.

Serena had screamed when Tuxedo Mask was hit. He was going to get killed, trying to save her, she realized. So were Raye, and Amy. Then these monsters would be on Earth. To threaten Andrew, and Melvin, and Miss Haruna, and even Sammy. To hurt them like they hurt Molly.

Something changed in the girl's eyes. Her hand clenched. The hand that held the large frozen pizza she had for some reason carried off the bus. Serena slowly raised the disk of rock-hard dough. And then she threw!

The pizza actually whirred as it sped through the air. The monster turned just in time, and just far enough, to take it square in the face. The impact knocked off the little blue cap and sent the monster reeling backwards.

Tuxedo Mask came up on one arm and a rose flashed in his hand. He had time, now, to aim. The rose sped straight and true -- into the thing's heart.

"We won?" Serena gasped. "I don't believe it!" Then she was scampering towards Raye. "We did it, we did it, we won, we won!" she cried.

"You idiot!" Raye yelled at her. She rolled over, groaned, struggled back to her feet. "What about Amy!"

  
  
  
  
Amy stared at the golden pen in her hands. Luna was lying still, unconscious or badly injured. "Mercury!" She identified the symbol that topped it. "But the element, or the planet? And Luna gave it to me; why? So I would have the power to defeat Jadeite?" She bit her lip, trying to reason it out. "Power. Mercury. Power..."

There was a tingle from the golden pen. "Mercury Power?" Amy ventured. The tingling returned, stronger. She glanced up; Jadeite was heading her way. She had no more time, and logic wasn't working. She had only time to try instinct.

Amy raised the pen high. Doing so felt completely natural, as if she had been doing it all her life. And that scared her, scared her almost as much as the power she could feel waiting to be unleashed.

He was almost upon her. Amy gripped the pen tighter and cried out the command. "MERCURY...POWER!"

The symbol flared with light and began to spin. The pen seemed to shiver with energy in her hand. Then power swept out of it in a wave of azure. Liquid light washed across her body, washing her down to the skin. Amy turned slowly, floating in the rippling blue, as the light streamed into her very soul, washing her, purifying her.

Then the power was streaming into her body. Power, and memory, and the realization that all she had ever known was only a part of what she truly was.

Ribbons of blue water bordered with liquid light wrapped about her torso, her arms, her legs. Like crystals forming in solution a uniform of pure white and brilliant azure and bright baby blue was being formed about her. Then a ripple came like a droplet shaking space-time itself, causing the uniform to suddenly sharpen into reality.

Amy's eyes opened. She could not help the quiet smile that formed as her body awakened in new strength. And the liquid power was still flowing through her, no, was within her; a part of her to focus and use.

She stood, transformed, and faced Jadeite in calm challenge.

"A Sailor Scout!" He stopped dead. "You're all supposed to be dead!" Then he shook his head, getting control of himself, and glared at Amy. "Well, time to die again, little Princess...!"

"Not this time, you big bully!" Amy turned in place, gracefully but purposefully, gathering up the power that was hers within her arms. She raised both hands, now covered in elbow-length gloves, to her face. 

"MERCURY...BUBBLES...BLAST!" she cried, shooting her hands down and back and sending the liquid energy towards the Negaverse General.

Water streamed out and instantly became cloud, became fog. Heavy fog wafted wetly into Jadeite's face with enough force to stagger him. Then the fog was all about him, clouding his sight, muffling sounds, even washing scent out of the air.

"Did I do that?" Amy said wonderingly. She could hear the Negaverse General blundering about in the fog.

"Amy!" Serena was calling for her, running in her direction. "Are you all right?" Tuxedo Mask was limping right behind her.

There was a scuffle, then a sharp cry, within the fog. "Dammit!" They heard Raye's voice. "You made me break a promise to Grandfather."

The fog slowly cleared around two figures. The black-haired Shinto Priestess was standing behind the Negaverse General. Her fingers were clenched in a strange spear-like grip.

Jadeite clutched at his chest. His eyes went wide in shock. "What...what did you do to me!"

"I stopped your veins." Raye said smugly. "In two minutes your blood will begin running backwards and then you'll be dead."

"A fitting end for a villainous coward," Tuxedo Mask said softly.

"Eww!" Serena commented.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Raye," Amy commiserated. "I know you promised your Grandfather you'd never use the Hino Death-touch on a living being."

Raye's eyebrow went up and she mouthed the words "Hino Death-touch?" back at Amy. Amy shrugged her shoulders in return.

Jadeite hadn't noticed. "I can't...can't die here!" He gasped. "I've learned too much! I know why our Queen has been acting so mysteriously. Zoicite, come work with me!" he called out. "The power of the Imperium Silver Crystal can be ours!"

Light and shadow formed about his body. He gasped, holding his chest with one hand while the other made the mystic gestures needed. An oval of black spread and grew until it swallowed him.

"Serena, guys!" Amy cried. "That's our way home! Come on!"

"What about all those people on the buses?" Serena cried. "How will we get them out of here?"

"Let me." Tuxedo Mask was already in motion. "I drove a bus in my summer job."

"Tuxedo Mask had a summer job?" Amy wondered to herself. Then she got it. "This isn't all he is. He has another life. He might even be someone we know!"

"Hino Death-touch!" Raye muttered as they ran for the busses.

"Yeah, Raye, I didn't know you could do that!" Serena said. "Do you think he's dead yet?"

"No..." And Raye smiled. "I used accupressure on him. Hit him right where it would give him a nasty case of heartburn..."

  
  
  
  
Detective Yamamura was standing at the police barricade. The parked patrol cars idled softly, flashers sending flickering red light into the quiet dark of the street.

Then an ozone-flavored wind picked up loose papers and whipped his trousers about his legs. In the sky a deeper patch of blackness formed, shot through with violet lightning.

Suddenly two yellow buses were there in the street, the first one towing the other. A girl in a costume that matched her hair stood on top of the first bus, skirt and sailor collar fluttering in the ionized wind. The driver, Yamamura saw, wore a white mask and a tall silk hat.

Yamamura quickly waved the other cops back, and stepped forward alone to meet the buses. He pulled his handkerchief, wiped his brow, quickly stuffed the handkerchief back in a pocket. 

He was really, _really_ starting to miss foot patrol.

  
  
  
  
  
  
All together now..."MOON...PIZZA....POWER!"

Next:

The Negaverse retreats to regroup, but Serena and her friends have bigger problems to worry about. Problems like bad nicknames, shrine guests who won't leave, and guys that look just like old boyfriends. Be there for...Boy Trouble!

  
  



	7. Boy Trouble

Search for the Moon Princess: Ep. Seven   
  
"Look, kid, I know you're new in this neighborhood so we'll explain things one more time. My dad is with the Genki Neighborhood Association. So is his."

Both older boys had the collars of their school uniforms open. The bigger had his sleeves rolled back as well, and something that looked like a tattoo peered out from his upper arm. The younger boy had just started at junior high and the satchel on his back looked bigger than he was. His eyes were angry and afraid under the thatch of black hair.

"You get money from your parents. We get fifty percent from you. Everyone goes home happy. Understand? Nothing personal, kid; it's just the way things are done here." The two pressed in closer.

"Un uh." The boy shook his head. He tried to back away but there was a wall in the way.

The one with the tattoo sighed. "You don't want to do that."

"Funny. I was about to say the same thing."

Everyone jerked around at the new voice. A girl was there. She was in the uniform of their junior high; a long brown skirt and a lace-up shirt. Her mahogany hair was caught up in a graceful ponytail. She was big for her age; almost as big as the two toughs.

"What's _your_ problem, sweetie?" The boy with the tattoo recovered first.

The tall girl sauntered closer. She seemed utterly relaxed, completely unfazed by the clenched fists. "I've been trying to remember if I'm right-handed or left-handed," she said. "I wonder if you could help?"

"Out...of...our...way." The boy with the tattoo said between his teeth. He grabbed the tall girl by the shirt front.

She hit him with a right cross. "Thanks!" she said brightly. "Right-handed!"

I should really learn to hold my temper, the girl thought as the other tough closed in. One more fight and they're liable to kick me out of this school. But sure as my name's Lita, I can't abide a bully...

  
  
  
  
  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS

  
  
Episode Seven: Boy Trouble

  
  
The cavern was empty but for Jadeite and his Queen. This once, he would have been more than happy to have the other Generals there, mocking him, taunting him, pushing the Queen to send them instead and jockeying for power in the brutal and unceasing way of the Negaverse.

The Queen brooded over her crystal. "You are certain it was one of the young Princesses."

"I am, My Queen." Jadeite replied, holding his voice as steady as he could. Fear burned in his stomach, far more painful than what that damnable Shinto girl had done to him. "She had one of those silly costumes they were wearing when our soldiers broke into their chambers so long ago."

The Queen raised her head just enough to catch Jadeite in a look that was fearfully cold and distant. "As I recall, those first soldiers died. General Malachite had to finish them off himself. Not a bad showing for a handful of adolescent girls."

"It's just one of them now," Jadeite said, beginning to sweat again. He saw the trap all too clearly now but he could find no way to avoid it.

He knew what the Queen was searching for now. He knew why she had forced upon them all the slow progress and skulking caution, and why out of all the Generals only he had been allowed on Earth so far.

If a lady-in-waiting of the Moon Kingdom could be on Earth in this time, then so could the greatest treasure of the Moon Kingdom; the Imperium Silver Crystal. It would have been just like that damned Serenity to send that thing forward when her dainty little kingdom fell. With power like the Imperium Silver Crystal Queen Beryl could rule forever. With power like that an ambitious General could take the Negaverse from her and rule in her stead.

Which meant he wasn't likely to leave this throne room alive.

"My Queen, do you still care if this girl is stopped?" he asked politely, dissembling at his very best. "She doesn't seem to be much of a threat to our operations."

The Queen looked at him without expression. Jadeite had a flash of hope. Perhaps she truly believed no thought of the Imperium Silver Crystal had occurred to him.

"Of course, she can be picked up and disposed of at any time, now," he said lightly. He made an airy wave of his hand. "No need to trace her through class records any longer. All I need is her friends..."

He froze. His last words played in his mind, mocking him, as the expression of sudden fear crossed the coldy beautiful features of his Queen.

Her friends. The young Moon Princess. Jadeite realized how far he had mis-read his Queen. It wasn't desire for the Imperium Silver Crystal that motivated Beryl; it was fear. Serenity had given her the toughest battle since she partook of the Negaforce. And Beryl was in deathly fear that somewhere on Earth might be someone that could use the Imperium Silver Crystal against her once again.

Like the young Princess. Serenity's daughter and heir.

The blinding blue light flashed across him almost before he could perceive it's coming. "My Queen!" he cried. Then the crystal prison closed about him to hold his body frozen for eternity...

  
  
  
  
"So the barriers between the worlds weakened, and Queen Beryl's army attacked the Moon Kingdom almost without warning. And the Queen of the Moon Kingdom, Queen Serenity, was able to beat them back." Amy was still trying to make sense of it all.

"Not exactly," Luna corrected. "Queen Serenity was able to close the barriers between the worlds and seal the Negaverse up again, but she did so at terrible cost. The Moon Kingdom itself was destroyed."

"So what good was that?" Raye said sharply.

"The Earth was saved. And the Queen was able to save her daughter and her friends as well."

"I thought you said they all died in the..." Suddenly Raye turned, and slid the door sharply open. A young man with shaggy hair and a wisp of beard on his chin looked vaguely startled before falling headlong into the room.

"Dude, that's terrible! They all died?"

Raye blazed up instantly. "What are you doing here, Chad! How dare you listen in on a private conversation between me and my friends! Is this what Grandfather and I brought you into the shrine to do?"

"Hey, like Raye, I'm so sorry. I was coming to see if you wanted some tea and I just got so involved in that story you were telling." The young man rocked backwards, one hand on his head. His cheeks were glowing.

"Aha," Serena said. "Aha," she pointed with one finger. "Look, Raye, he's blushing! He's got something for you, Raye. I'll bet he does!" She swung on the unfortunate lad again. "Isn't she pretty when she's angry? Huh? Isn't she?"

"WOULD YOU STOP THAT!"

They were all silenced by Raye's outburst. Luna sighed. The young man scurried backwards out of the doorway, and they could hear him stumbling backwards off the low wooden porch.

"As I was saying..." the cat said quietly.

Luna is so right, Amy was thinking. Whenever we get together we fight like this. But I like it! A grin floated on her lips; lady-like, she hid it behind one hand. I was so lonely before I met Serena. I'm not any more. She keeps things around her exciting.

I was getting a little grim there, the girl thought. And I made some pretty bad decisions. I have to apologize to Serena for how I was pushing her around back there.

Her mind went back to the conclusion of their extraordinary adventure. She had leapt down from the top of the bus. Without thinking about it. Amy had always been strong and fast -- she was better at sports than she tried to be. But the new power in her made the leap from the top of a city bus a minor thing.

She landed by the detective. Tuxedo Mask was already climbing from the driver's seat.

"This isn't the time or place," Detective Yamamura said before Amy could open her mouth. "Later, we'll talk. For now, you and your friends get out of here. We'll see to the people you rescued."

Amy turned at movement near her. "You saved us again," she said to Tuxedo Mask. "Thank you."

"I must be there, when the one I love is in danger," he replied. He drew his cape about him and lifted into the air, fading into the star-shot night.

"Ooooh!" said both Serena and Raye. 

Jadeite was gone before we even thought of looking for him, Amy thought. The girls really don't pay attention to business, do they? But she was blushing inside, at a memory of her own...

"Greg?" He had been waiting just out of sight of the police cars. 

"Who's this, Amy?" Serena said. 

"This is Greg." Amy said calmly. "He can see into the future."

"Sometimes." Greg shrugged, uncomfortable. "Here." He held out a coat for Amy.

"Yeah, so what _is_ it with that outfit, Amy?" Serena said with a strange smirk. "When did you find time to change?"

"It is the uniform of the Sailor Scouts," Luna explained. For all the help THAT was. 

"Ah, thanks, Greg." Amy was shrugging into the coat. For just a moment she was aware of how closely the uniform fit, and how much long leg she was showing.

Serena got one of her strange looks again. "There's our bus stop, Raye. We'd better wait there. See you guys tomorrow!"

She is _so_ obvious, Amy grinned. A little matchmaker, she is. And it infuriates Raye.

"So we need this Princess person to stop Beryl for good, huh?" Raye was saying. Amy shook herself back to the present. She glanced about Raye's room at the temple, at her two friends. For a moment a puzzling familiarity was in her memory; as if she had known these two girls, and Luna, too, a long time ago...

"Queen Serenity sent the Moon Princess into the future before the Moon Kingdom was destroyed," Luna explained. "And she sent the Sailor Scouts, friends and defenders of the Princess, with her as well."

"And that's what I am, Luna?" Amy asked. "I'm from this Moon Kingdom? Re-incarnated or something? And that pen you gave me allows me to transform into one of the Moon Princess' defenders?"

"I believe so," said the cat.

"You believe so?" Raye blurted out. "You're not sure?"

The cat sighed. "Time travel isn't good for one's memory. I remember just bits and pieces from the Moon Kingdom. I think, if the Moon Princess were here, I would be able to remember more."

So we have a fragmented memory of the past, and a cloudy vision of the future, to guide us, Amy thought. I'm remembering a little myself now. Nothing to guide me. Just knowing what my powers are, and what I can do. This history I have just learned is still an other self within me, and a fearful mystery.

Suddenly Serena nudged her. "You okay, Amy?"

Amy smiled at her friend. "I am, now."

  
  
  
  
"This is so unfair!" Serena said under her breath. She had taken the bus back from the Hikawa Shrine and she was now walking towards the Crown Arcade. She didn't mean it was unfair that a whole world full of monsters was poised to attack Earth, and the only person that might save them was half-mythical and missing besides.

She meant it was unfair that Amy had Greg, and Raye had Chad -- if she'd just pay more attention to him! -- and she didn't have anyone. Well, _she_ meant to snag Tuxedo Mask for herself. "What a dreamboat!" she sighed. No way Raye was going to take him from her!

"Ooof!" Serena said. A shirt was in her face. A strong chest, broad shoulders -- she looked further up -- a handsome face beneath black hair. "Who are you?" she sighed dreamily.

"I'm the guy you just ran into," he said sourly, obviously not impressed by her. "Do you always walk around with your eyes closed?"

"I didn't...I don't...and what's it to you, anyway!"

"Hey, it isn't my problem you're clumsy. Now could you and that weird hair of yours make some room so I can get by?"

"Weird hair!"

"Looks like a couple of meatballs stuck on your head." She was still clutching to his shirt; he pulled her fingers free with surprising gentleness, and drew back. "Meatball head." He couldn't resist a last shot.

He was out of sight and around a corner before Serena started wailing. "This is so unfair! I meet a gorgeous guy, and he hates me! He called me...'Meatball head!'"

  
  
  
  
At long last Raye managed to quiet down her Grandfather, and finish up their simple supper, and make sure the temple was secure for the night. Chad was as usual no help. 

Raye knew his type all too well. A deadbeat. Staying at a shrine or temple was cheaper than staying at the Y, even if you did have to sweep floors and do meditations.

Grandpa was completely fooled by him. He seemed so earnest, so truly interested in everything Grandpa had to teach him. Of course it was an act. What could an old man say that might be interesting to a guy like Chad?

And the way Serena kept trying to push them together! Did that girl have any common sense whatsoever?

There was a flicker of light. A pair of eyes less sharp then hers might not have caught it. Raye squinted into the darkness outside the tall torii gate of the shrine.

There was a man down by the bus stop, a long coat against the chill and a cigarette now glowing in his cupped hands. The light and the distance hid his features, but Raye was certain it was that police detective, Yamamura. 

After a few moments, and a long drag at his cigarette, he straightened up and walked away into the night.

  
  
  
  
  
  
Next:

Monsters, magic, and frequent watering as our valiant friends discover a little shop of horrors... Be there and I'll show you!

  
  



	8. Green Thumbs

Search for the Moon Princess: Ep. Eight   
  
"I am the pretty sailor-suited soldier for love and justice, Sailor V!" The girl in the gold and orange uniform drew two fingers before her white mask in a quick salute before taking her battle pose.

The monster glared. And reared. And shambled towards the girl. The great mouth opened, a bottomless void limned by wicked fangs. From that terrible maw came; "The capitol of the United Kingdom is...?"

"London!" Serena spoke without thinking. She lifted her glance, slowly, to see not a monster but a very angry and dangerous looking Miss Haruna. Uh oh, she thought, wondering how much of the comic book was showing from behind the textbook she was SUPPOSED to be studying.

"London is correct." Miss Haruna said, surprised. "Very good, Serena. And not like you at all." She turned back to her desk and picked up her chalk again.

Serena dove back into the comic book. "Go get 'em, Sailor V," she mumbled.

  
  
  
  
  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS

  
  
Episode Eight : Green Thumbs

  
  
  
  
Queen Beryl was lounging back in the black throne, her eyes hooded. "Tell me," her voice was dangerously calm, "how you intend to proceed now that you have inherited Jadeite's job."

Not even the threat of the ex-general's frozen body could erase the relaxed insouciance or the ever-present sneer of Beryl's next ranking General, Nephrite. "The humans lavish much care and energy on some useless plants they call flowers," he said. "I thought it might be pleasant to provide a more useful outlet for those energies."

"And if your scheme is discovered, just as all your predecessor's were? What then?" the Queen demanded.

The sneer grew. "Did I neglect to mention our source is well guarded? If that girl shows up," at least he knew better than to mention the Princess Mercury by name, "my transformed servant will take care of her." Nephrite laughed, then. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "She and her friends will make a fine fertilizer!"

  
  
  
  
  
Warm and soft and cuddly, with just a little tickle from the soft clean quilt over her, and a bit of a lovely stretch here and settle back into a fine dream...

And a voice screeching in her ear. "Serena! You're going to be late to school!"

"Unnnggg!" Serena complained. "Mwbl ububub," she explained carefully. She twisted into a more comfortable sprawl and headed back for dreamland.

"Serena!" Ten pounds of fur-bearing animal dropped on her stomach. "Honestly, how you ever expect to make anything of yourself! Your grades are nothing to be proud of, Serena, and neither is your attendance record!"

"Aww! I was just dreaming about me and Tuxedo Mask, and..."

Luna changed her tone. Sweetly, she said, "If you are late for school one more time your mother won't let you go to the Crown Arcade after school."

"And not see Andrew! I mean... Oh, no! I'm going to be late for school!" And Serena scrambled from her bed. 

She crashed through her untidy bedroom, splashed water in her face, jumped into the school uniform laying across a chair, and ran downstairs. "No time for breakfast, mom!" she cried. "I'm going to be late as it is!"

"Why, Serena!" Her mother was sitting quietly at the table, sipping a morning tea. Behind her something was cooking, and the smell was enough to urge Serena's stomach to stay behind. "Whatever errand could you have so early on a Saturday morning?"

"So long..." Serena roared through the front door, flaps down and afterburner lit.

And slowly came back in. "Saturday?"

Her mother nodded.

"Saturday?!" She looked daggers at Luna.

"Well, what?" The cat made sure Serena's mother wasn't in a position to overhear. "I'm a _cat_, Serena. You think I keep a Day-Runner?"

  
  
  
  
  
"Molly! It's...I can't get over...you look great, your mom is great, you're out of the hospital and everything!"

"Thanks, Serena," Molly said in the soft slow accent of rural Kansai. "You've all been so good to me. That helped a whole lot."

"We were worried about you," Amy said gently. "I'm glad you're okay."

They were all at one of the inside tables at the Crown Arcade; Molly, Serena, Amy, and Luna. Despite the huge breakfast -- that she had for once had time to eat -- Serena was managing to decimate the large sundae before her.

"My mom just...woke up," Molly said. "And she didn't remember anything about what had happened."

"So that mean witch Queen Beryl must have put a spell on her, right, Luna?" Serena turned to the cat.

"Not exactly..." Luna's attention was elsewhere. Then she realized what she had done.

Molly's eyes were huge. "You talk!"

"Boy, does she," Serena said. Then she looked up. "Um..." she met Amy's eyes. "Oops?"

"Ah, Molly," Amy temporized. Then she caught herself. Why should we be keeping secrets from her? Molly is in as much danger as we are from these things. She has a right to know. "Go ahead and tell her, Serena," she said.

Serena needed no urging. "Yeah, so Molly, you're not going to believe this! Amy's a superhero, just like Sailor V!"

"Serena!" Luna rolled her eyes. 

"Actually, it's really more that..." Amy tried to interject.

"She can transform and everything! Oh, and then there's Tuxedo Mask!" Serena sighed deeply. "You got to see him to believe him. We're fighting the monsters," she added as if an afterthought.

She'd probably sum up World War II as having snappy uniforms and nice dance music, Amy sighed. "So, Molly, what did happen to you?"

"It was a monster." Molly's accent gave the word about three syllables. "Just like Serena said. Right after it grabbed me I keeled over."

"What did it look like?"

"It had these flowers on the ends of its arms. Purple-red, three well-defined petals, three sepals with the center in a long vase shape."

"Dendrobia!" Serena said.

"Oh, Serena," Molly said. "Cattleya. Amethystoglossa, I think, or maybe one of the larger epiphytes."

"Flying Parsnip?"

"Red Queen's Head!"

"What ARE you two talking about!" Amy looked from one to the other.

"Orchids!" they chorused.

"Okay, okay." Amy put her hands flat on the table. It beat putting them over her face. "So you are saying you were attacked by a giant plant."

"Was it singing?" someone asked.

"Weirdo!" Serena said, sticking her tongue out at the passing stranger. Then she caught sight of two people near the counter. "Uh, oh."

"Serena," Amy prodded. "We have a real problem here."

"I'll say. That's that guy that bumped into me. How does he know Andrew?"

"Oh, Serena." Molly looked around with a healthy interest. "That's Darien," she confided. "He used to go to school with Andrew. He's in here all the time."

"Hey, looks like he's got a sore arm."

"He goes to the gym daily, same as Andrew," Molly offered as possible explanation.

"Could we just..." Amy was saying as she looked around. Her gaze stuck. Darien was handsome. Tall, black hair, intelligent looking. Well, Amy thought. Maybe the plant monster could wait a little...

  
  
  
  
  
"Harry's Horticulture?" Amy said. "Is that _really_ what this shop is called?"

"Sure," Molly said. "They know just everything about orchids."

Serena was already pushing her way inside. "Oooh, smell!" she said. "So many flowers! Oh, look at this one! And this one!" In moments both she and Molly were within, inspecting flowers and displays, smelling bouquets, admiring blossoms.

"Guys? Ahem? Have you noticed there's no-one else here?" Amy looked around again. "Where is the staff?"

"Maybe they are all in the greenhouse," Molly offered. She led the way, pushing open a door in the back of the shop. Warm air with a thick jungle smell wafted out. A tall figure moved somewhere back among the rows of pots and the tall trellises.

"Watch out, Serena!" Molly could hardly speak through giggles. "It might be a plant!"

"Oh, no," said a rustling, breathy voice from within. "Not puns."

"You think we should _leave_ ?" Serena chortled back.

"Um, guys?" Amy said. It was a plant. A big green man-shaped plant with purple-red flowers for hands. And it was moving towards them! "Molly!" she cried. "Get back!"

Too late. Green vines shot out of the plant-monster. They coiled about their friend with an audible snap. Molly cried out, tried to push against the vines.

"Why do these things keep picking on Molly?" Serena said. "Amy! You gotta transform and save her!"

"Right!" Amy lifted the transformation pen high. "MERCURY...POWER!" 

Watery light broke about her, piercing the mists with cool beams of light, filling the greenhouse in azure and turquoise. The uniform of the Sailor Scouts formed about her.

The plant-monster was pulling Molly closer; their friend's eyes were already closed, and she hung limply from the green coils. "Let her go!" Amy yelled. The monster ignored her.

"You gotta challenge it!" Serena was plucking at her sleeve. "You gotta do the speech, like Sailor V!"

Serena just might be right. Amy cleared her throat, paused. Then she took a wide-legged pose, arms crossed, fists clenched and ready. 

"All right, you overgrown weed!" she cried. "I am the sailor-suited soldier for love, justice and good grades, Sailor Mercury! I will right wrongs and triumph over evil -- and that means you, green boy!"

The monster swung about and dropped Molly. It had worked! For once, Amy was glad Serena had shown her all those comic books.

The monster shambled in their direction, pistils primed and ready. "Now what do I do?" Amy said worriedly.

"Blast it!" Serena was jumping up and down.

"I can't 'blast it!' All I have is fog power! And a lot of good that is going to do against something that lives in a greenhouse!"

"You mean we're helpless?" Serena wailed. Amy nodded grimly. The plant closed in, green vines lifting out towards them...

  
  
  
  
  
A single red rose flashed through mists that parted magically before it. The monster jerked back as if stung.

Serena looked up, saw the young man in the dashing black cloak and hat as the mists parted about him. He is so handsome, Serena thought dreamily. And I trust him so utterly. As if I have always known him, known him for ages uncounted...

Tuxedo Mask winked at her. "I always turnip in the nick of time, don't I?" he said. He raised his voice. "Now squash this plant-monster and get out of here!"

"We can't fight it!" Amy said. "We don't have any powers!"

Tuxedo Mask was already fading back into the mists. "You have the only powers you need," he said. "Intelligence. Willpower. Friendship. You can win through here," he finished. "You must."

Amy shook herself. "Isn't it a hothouse plant? Maybe we can break a window and give it a chill."

"Don't be silly," Serena said. "Besides, there's orchids that grow in the arctic." Then she stopped. Her eyes went wide. "Hey, Amy," she said. "I think I've got an idea...!" Their eyes met in sudden understanding.

"I'll keep it off of you," Amy said.

And she charged! The monster was as startled as Serena; it let off a spray of vines an instant too late. The transformed Sailor of Mercury ducked, and kept running. Serena hoped her friend wouldn't brain herself on something back there in the mist.

Serena turned, and ran for the door. She grabbed the big fire extinguisher there, and, after a long fumbling moment, got the safety wire off. "I got it, Amy!" she yelled.

"Blast it!" Amy cried from somewhere back in the greeenhouse. 

Serena turned, aimed at a shadowy figure moving in the fog, and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud whoosh as frozen vapor leapt into the already cloudy air.

"No, n-n-not m-m-me!" Amy gasped. "B-b-blast the m-m-m, the m-m-monster!"

Serena turned, and squeezed again. This time she kept the handle down until the frosty white plume was gone. There was a protracted crashing, like a very small tree being felled.

"Did I get it? Did I get it?" Serena asked.

Amy came out of the mist, shivering violently. "Why," she complained, "did the Sailor Scout uniform have to have a miniskirt? Yeah, you got it." She sneezed, and sneezed again. "I can't stop shivering long enough to transform into warmer clothes!"

  
  
  
  
  
Mrs. Tsukino looked fondly at her oldest child. Serena was tearing into the broccoli, and had yet to even look at the desert that went with the family's evening meal. "Why, Serena," she said. "I never knew you liked vegetables so much!"

Serena mumbled something, still chewing vigorously.

"Did you understand what she said, dear?"

"No, dear," Mr. Tsukino answered. "But it sounded a little like 'get them before they get me!'"

Both of them looked at each other. "Must be _your_ side of the family!" they said in unison.

Serena, oblivious, chewed.

  
  
  
  
  
  
NEXT --

  
  
The Negaverse regroups, and their first move is to neutralize Amy. Be there for....Mercury Falling! A darker turn to the saga of the alternate Sailors...

  



	9. Mercury Falling

Search for the Moon Princess: Ep. Nine   
  
Amy was still shivering violently, and Serena was all but carrying Molly as they made their way to the street. They are such good people, Molly thought wonderingly. They fought that monster for me. To help _me!_

Molly wasn't in the least bit jealous of the strong friendship that had sprung up between Amy and Serena. Do they see it, she wondered, do they see how close they are? She glanced sideways at Amy, whose superhero costume was again hidden. Both of them are so strong, Molly thought. I feel so treasured to be their friend.

"There's the bus stop," Serena said. "It shouldn't be long."

Amy sneezed in reply.

A white convertible was passing them. It slowed, then pulled to the side of the road. Molly looked up. In one startled moment her eyes locked on the driver. Handsome. An older man, with shoulder-length hair, and deep, dark eyes.

"Your friend doesn't look so good," the man spoke, his voice filled with warm concern. "Here, you'd better take a cab. On me.

" A cab was already pulling up, sensing a fare. Money was transferred, and the man was back in his convertible in a moment. "Oh, thank you, sir!" Molly couldn't meet his eyes.

"It's the right thing to do. Isn't it?" For a moment the man seemed uncertain. Then he shot them a smile, and pulled smoothly away from the curb.

Molly sat back against the cab's upholstery. She was tired, drained, but she'd felt that way before. She'd snap back. Her friends were by her side.

And a pair of deep, dark eyes were on her mind.

  
  
  
  
  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS

  
  
Episode Nine : Mercury Falling

  
  
  
  
It was cold at the shrine. It had been cold on the bus. Serena shivered and stamped and hated the unseasonable weather. She wondered why Raye didn't put some heat on. It was one thing being traditional and all, but this was silly!

"Serena! Could you pay attention?"

"Aw, Raye!" She was _so_ mean!

Amy politely waited for them to stop fighting. "This ib my analysis," she said. She wiped her nose again. "The attacks are stebbing up, and spreading out from the central Adabu-Juuban. The barriers between worlds must be breaking down."

"It is as I feared," Luna said gravely. The cat hopped up on the table, and turned slowly to regard them each in turn. "They are using their stolen energy to open up the dimensional passage. When they have enough, the barrier will crumble entirely and we will be part of the Negaverse."

"Then we stop 'em," Raye declared. Her dark eyes flashed. In her red and white Miko garb she might have been an ancient samurai. She reached below the low table and brought up a sword in the old style. "I'm ready," she said grimly.

This is so cool, Serena thought. I feel like part of a real super-team. "Do we all get swords?" she asked.

"I wouldn't trust you with a salad fork!"

"Weapons aren't the answer." Amy tried to be reasonable. "We can't fight these things one-on-one. We have to concentrate on finding the Moon Princess!"

"So Luna says," Raye snapped back. "I'm not letting monsters run loose in my neighborhood, and I'm not taking all my advice from a cat!"

"So who are those two ravens of yours supposed to be," Amy jibed, "Hugin and Munin?"

Raye looked blankly at her.

"Hugin and Munin. They report to Odin." The others still looked blank. "Norse Mythology. We've had this guest lecturer in from Norway..." Amy trailed off.

"Well, what about radios?" Serena had stopped following a while back. "I mean, shouldn't we have something so we can contact each other?"

Luna turned. "That's the most constructive thing I've ever heard from you," she said. "Certainly you need radios. Just give me a moment and..."

"And that's another thing," Raye cut in. "Why is Serena here? Sure, we need Luna; she's the only one who really knows about this Moon Kingdom stuff. But Serena doesn't know how to fight, and she doesn't have any powers -- she can't even make a fog." The last was rather pointed.

"What!" Amy gasped. "Serena's been in this thing from the start! She..."

"That's all right, Amy." Serena's eyes were already filled with tears. But she didn't wail. She stood, and finished quietly, "I understand. I'll be outside if anyone needs me."

Serena walked from the impromptu council of war. She left her friends sitting about the low wooden table, and walked out into bare shrine grounds as chill as if it were already winter.

  
  
  
  
  
  
"That was cruel, and un-called for, Raye." Amy was truly angry. Angry enough that her voice did not rise, but bit out measured words.

Raye's eyes flashed. "This is war, and hurt feelings are nothing. You guys have been treating this like a game," she continued. "Now, put some cold steel to these Negaverse creeps and see if they continue to give us trouble!"

"We've been lucky," Amy tried to explain. "And they've been holding back. I'm not sure why. I can tell by the patterns."

"You can predict where they are going to be next? Great; we can set up an ambush and get them for sure!"

"I'm trying to explain that they are too tough for us!" Amy cried.

"Well, I don't agree." Raye stood, then. She held the sheathed sword down, along one pleat of her robes. "You're not running this thing, Amy. You go ahead and do whatever it is you have to."

"Raye. Please. We need each other, Raye."

A few minutes later Amy left, walking slowly. She hardly spoke as she and Serena rode the bus away from Sendai Hill and the Hikawa Shrine.

  
  
  
  
  
  
"So, Darien. You've got something on your mind. I mean, more than usual."

Andrew had always been direct, Darien thought. Probably how he managed to make friends with me, back when we were in Junior High together. I've always been a little too reserved.

Andrew leaned on the counter, looked at him in his friendly open way. They were almost alone in the place -- it was too early yet for the school crowd. "I think I've got it," he told Darien. "It's girl trouble."

Darien nodded shortly. There was no hope Andrew would leave it at that, though.

"You still got that dream girl of yours?"

Darien looked up. "I never..." He hadn't mentioned his dreams to anyone.

Andrew grinned. "Lucky guess. You're the type to have a dream girl, Darien. A hapless romantic, that's what you are."

Darien hated the way Andrew could fluster him like this. Worse, it was probably good for him. "Romantic," he rolled his eyes. "I bumped into another one of _those_ recently. This blond clutz, wandering around in some sort of dreamy haze."

"So you've met Serena now," Andrew grinned.

"How do you know who it was?" Darien demanded.

"Easy, now." Andrew held up a hand. "Serena's in here most school days, with a bunch of her friends. In fact, they were in here last weekend when you were here. And I could see the way they were checking you out."

Darien sighed, exasperated.

"I think it's kinda cute," Andrew said. "And they're good people. You could do a lot worse than Serena, there."

"She is way much too young for me," Darien said, a little too sharply. He didn't like how strongly he had reacted to the girl. Well, she had practically thrown herself in his arms. So tender, and so trusting. He wrenched his thoughts away again. She was a child, a clumsy child! With stupid hair!

"Hey, what about all those princes and princesses getting betrothed as children?" Andrew continued his teasing.

"I'm not royalty," Darien laughed shortly.

Andrew raised an eyebrow. "You so sure? You said you never learned much about your parents."

Darien's thoughts went flying back again to his dream girl. The Moon Princess. He wasn't sure how he knew her title. She was involved, somehow, in his blackouts.

He sighed. Andrew didn't say anything, but his look of concern showed he had noticed Darien's change of mood.

He'd had another blackout. At the Shinto Shrine on Sendai Hill. Came to in his apartment well after midnight, sweaty and bruised. His arm still hurt. He had a vague memory -- more like a nightmare -- of a barren landscape the color of dried blood, and a laughing monster with paper-white skin. And the Moon Princess was in there somewhere. Darien had the strange sense he had been protecting her. 

He also had the disturbing sense that he was hiding from himself. He liked his orderly life, completing high school while living off the interest on his trust fund. He sensed that if he really wanted to understand his blackouts -- if he was willing to face the truth inside himself -- he would.

"Darien? You okay?"

The school bells had sounded and the young people were beginning to show up. Darien wondered, with more than a little ambivalence, if Serena would be among them. It was time to do something, time to deal with his demons. "I'm doing fine," he told Andrew.

Maybe it was even true.

  
  
  
  
  
  
"I am the Princess Mercury. This is my fight. It was my fight thousands of years ago, when the Moon Kingdom fell."

Saying those brave words didn't help much. Amy felt cold, and lonely. Even lonelier than she had been months ago. Before Serena, and Molly, and the rest of her new friends. Before she knew what it was like to have such friends.

"But Raye is that much right. I won't put Serena in danger." It made logical sense to her, but it felt so wrong. She needed the strength of companionship. Even as Sailor Mercury, she needed the other Sailor Scouts. The others that had always been there for her, and for the one they had all loved and protected -- the Moon Princess.

"When did I know that?" Amy wondered. "Another memory slipping out? I wish there was more! I wish I could really know what and who I was, back in the Moon Kingdom!"

It was getting late, and she wasn't sure she could explain that to her mom. She had enough trouble that night they fought Jadeite and saved those two buses full of passengers. Amy had already transformed, feeling stronger and more confident in her Sailor Mercury personae. She wasn't sure she could explain the costume, either, should someone see her.

Two girls had almost died. One of them a Crossroads student, the other from that private school Raye went to. Both honors students, both intelligent and strong in math. Both found frozen nearly solid.

Amy had worked out the patterns in her database and was now, methodically, hunting the thing's lair. But who would she turn to when she found it? Who did she know that she could tell?

Or when it found her. Amy was coldly certain she knew the pattern behind these latest attacks. The thing she sought was, itself, hunting Amy.

The lift wasn't part of the building under construction; it was just a rig of open steel and cable to move workers to the upper floors. It clattered and creaked as it rose. Amy stood silently, watching the darkened city opening out in front of her as she climbed higher and higher into the skeleton of steel. A cold breeze blew through the open cage, stirring her short hair and the bows on her Sailor Scout uniform.

Amy arrived at the top floor and shut down the lift. The bare floor, rough plywood, seemed to shiver with the height of the raw steel frame, and the cold wind blew unheeded across it. She could see half of Tokyo spread out in lights.

The Sailor of Mercury walked forward, boot heels falling softly on the flooring. There were stacks of construction materials, a compressor, a heavy tool cart on wheels....

And a huge figure with pale blue skin, blond hair and beard, in furs and armor with a great horned helmet, waiting solemnly for her.

It spoke. "So this is the champion Earth sends against me? A female?"

Mercury hated that hearty, bullying tone. She clenched her fists, but said nothing. That stupid speech was fine for Sailor V, but it wasn't going to help her here. So what was this thing, anyway? It looked like something out of Norse mythology.

"I am Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr!" The giant laughed at her, not even bothering to move his hands from the cross guard of his monstrous sword.

"Yup, gotta be Norse with a name like that!" Mercury muttered. Just once, do you think we could fight something with an ordinary Japanese name? She raised her arms in front of her. "MERCURY BUBBLES...BLAST!"

The chill fog spread out quickly. Now, Mercury thought, can I get out of here without him hearing me?

The frost giant laughed again, a deep booming laugh. The laugh seemed everywhere in the fog, on all sides of her. Mercury shook her head. "Wouldn't you think I could see through my own fog? I need some kind of goggles or something."

She felt her way carefully. Her foot touched open air. Mercury twisted in mid-air and threw herself back towards the safety of the floor. She might be tough in her Mercury personae, but she wasn't that tough. Not to survive a thirty-story fall!

The frost giant laughed again, seeming to understand exactly what had happened, and taunting her.

Mercury got to her feet. She was almost getting angry. As the fog cleared she faced the Norse giant with a glare. 

He sneered at her. "I, Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr, am done with waiting! With my sword and magic helmet..."

"Magic helmet?"

"...magic helmet, I will complete the first of my tasks. Let the Princess Mercury sleep until the fimblewinter comes and all Midgard sleeps with her in everlasting cold!"

Blue flames licked about the horned helmet, then shot towards Mercury. In a moment she was surrounded by a ring of blue-white fire. It was cold, searing cold. Mercury fell to her knees as the warmth was sucked from her body. She could feel her energy, her life itself draining from her.

"You can not escape from the ring of fire. It will follow you everywhere, remain about you. Surrender, child."

Mercury fell over on her side. Her eyes were closing. She did the only thing left to her.

She transformed.

  
  
  
  
  
Amy sniffed as she stood, shakily. The magic fire was linked to her Sailor Mercury form. Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr wouldn't be able to use it again. She had to act before he realized that.

Amy leapt. She ran right at the giant, and took a long leap into the air, to kick hard at his chest, maybe knock him over, maybe even hurt him if she was lucky....

The sword slashed upwards, catching her across the legs and flinging her outwards. Amy slid across the rough floorboards almost to the edge of the thirty-story drop-off. 

There was a taste of metal in her mouth, and the air hummed. The sword had been turned flat, but it had broken both her legs. The world tilted about Amy. In that instant she no longer had hopes and dreams, her future as a doctor, the romances to come. She had only minutes more of life, minutes to be filled with nothing but another crashing pain, then the long fall into the dark canyon below.

There was a surprising gentleness in the giant's booming voice. "Life ends, child. All that lives, dies. The gods themselves live only to die in battle, to fail their world and fall."

Fear was swallowing her. It had never been like this before, not even when she faced Jadeite. But Amy struggled against it anyway. She reached for words, for understanding, as if logic might turn aside the inexorable.

"That's the Norse philosophy, isn't it? All ends, and not even heroes can win. But you left something important out."

"Be quiet, woman! Accept your fate!"

Amy struggled up on one elbow. Then a little further. She knew she was in shock, and she knew just how much her broken legs were going to hurt in a minute or two. Sometimes it just didn't pay to have a doctor for a parent.

"You'd like me to do that," she said. "Surrender, throw myself at your mercy." She bit her lip, and then she said it. "I'm not going to. You can kill me, but you can never defeat me. I'll die with a smile on my lips, and steal your victory from you."

Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr studied her with a new look; a measure of respect. "I shall mock you no more," he said solemnly. He raised the great sword. "Laugh for me, now, and we will laugh together in the face of fate!"

So much for delaying tactics, Amy thought. As if those few minutes she bought would bring a rescuer. She drew in breath, opened her mouth for the last laugh she would ever have...

In a crash of sound the sword flew from the giant's hand.

"Tuxedo Mask!" Amy cried.

It wasn't. Detective Yamamura stepped out of hiding and jacked the action on his riot gun again. He shot, rolled quickly to one side, shot again. The giant was still off-balance; he lunged towards where Yamamura had been, turned, caught another blast and staggered again.

Yamamura kept moving and shooting, keeping the giant off-balance and giving him no time to react. Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr was beginning to understand, though. His eyes glimmered in rage. He stopped, turned to face the riot gun, grimaced into the next blast...

And his rear foot touched air.

Amy lunged. She knew it was going to hurt. She was in motion before the pain caught up with her. One shove that felt like it was sending flaming spikes through her legs, and the heavy tool cart was in motion. It struck the wind milling frost giant, and he fell into the open lift shaft.

Yamamura listened for the impact thirty stories below. Then he fired two more times. Metal screeched and parted and the lift cage dropped from sight, accelerating, heading like a pile-driver towards the fallen giant.

The detective sagged in fatigue, hands braced on his knees. "What was that thing, Mighty Thor?" he gasped.

"Well, he did seem pretty upset!" Amy joked. Then the pain hit her again and she had to clench her teeth against it.

"I'm not sure even that finished it. Watch out; this is going to hurt." Kenjiro Yamamura picked Amy up, and cradled her in his arms like a child to carry her to the other lift.

He was right. The pain came like a wave and the world went black. Amy held on to a shred of consciousness, noticing only when she was moved, when the detective's car went over a bump, when doors opened and the lights of a hospital were about her.

Two things had become very, very clear. The Negaverse had taken the offensive. And Sailor Mercury was out of the fight.

  
  
  
  
  
  
NEXT --

  
  
It's been a quiet week at the Shinto shrine -- if you think that, you don't know Raye! Stay tuned for the first episode of the Raye saga, as our hot-tempered Shinto Priestess takes up the fight...!

  
  



	10. Challenge of Vengeance!

  
  


The boy ran hard down the alley, clutching the bo he had snagged before running for his life. 

Suddenly they were in front of him. "Going somewhere?" one of the Seki School students taunted. "Your school is a waste. We already defeated your Sensei." 

"This...this doesn't make any sense!" the boy panted. "This is modern Japan! Schools don't go around challenging each other, beating up students!" 

He held up the useless bo. "I do this for the work-out, you understand?" 

"Work this out, Ginzu School!" the two laughed. They moved in. 

The boy shifted his grip. Only one thing might save him; the Ginzu School's secret technique! The secret technique, unfortunately, that he'd never quite mastered... 

The bo slashed around in a complex, spiral pattern. The boy had a brief moment of exultation -- when one of the Seki School stopped it between two open palms. The hardwood staff flipped from the boy's hands and went into the air like a child's pinwheel toy. 

The boy sobbed. Fists came up. 

"Just a moment!" a voice said. The toughs turned to look. A girl had just stepped from the entrance of a nearby shop. The bo fell past her -- until her hand whipped out, catching it, bringing it to rest in a light guard position along one pleat of her old-fashioned hakama. 

The boy blinked. There should have been a shakuhachi -- the bamboo flute -- like the score to an old samurai movie. The girl stood in calm challenge, her black eyes flashing. 

"Beat her up too!" the taller of the Seki school shouted. 

They tried. The first one lunged and got nothing but hardwood between his arms -- plus a rap on the nose for his pains. As he stumbled back, the other collided with him. 

The girl was a whirlwind of long black hair and flashing eyes, looking like an ancient warrior in her white kimono and billowy hakama trousers. She whacked both with the long hardwood bo, driving them far from her, knocking them over, bowling them along the ground. 

One up-ended in a pile of rubbish. "Who, who are you?" the other gasped from the ground where he lay. "What school has defeated us?" 

"Idiots!" the girl snapped. "I'm from the Hikawa Shrine!" 

She tossed down the bo and turned her back on them to stride away. Once again, the boy was sure he heard the lonely sound of a bamboo flute...   
  
  
  
  
  


THE SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS   
  


Episode Ten : Challenge of Vengeance!   
  
  
  


The shrine was so peaceful, Darien thought. He had been coming here quite a bit in the past few days. He needed the peace and quiet here to think. A shrine was a good place for meditation, wasn't it? 

It was a lovely place, up here amid the cherry trees. And the shrine priestess he'd seen about wasn't hard on the eyes, either. 

Of course it was lovely. For that was at the heart of Shinto; the awe and veneration one felt for a very old tree, a grand mountain, or a perfect little grotto about a burbling stream. Buddhism had its scriptures and observances, but Shinto was much older, and spoke without official texts and mediating priests to the bond between man and nature, and to the spirit world so close to the observances of daily life. 

The sanctuary had the extended roof poles and gently curved eves of the Nara style. About it in no particular order were auxiliary buildings and quarters for the priests and assistants. Darien had, as had the other visitors, done the ceremonial ablutions at the little pavilion near the sanctuary. And had this been a weekend, there would have been stands in the courtyard where one might cast one's fortune or buy a good-luck talisman. Assuming, of course, one could push through the crowds of giggling schoolgirls. 

"Mind?" Darien looked up. The young man was about his age, and dressed in the loose kimono and skirt-like hakama pants. He held a straw broom in his hands. 

Darien gestured lightly, meaning he didn't mind the company. The young man sat with obvious relief, resting his broom against the stone bench. "Chad," he said. 

"Darien," he nodded in return. They sat quietly then, not needing further conversation. 

The young man sighed deeply. Darien looked up, and saw the dark-haired shrine priestess was just crossing the court. He's in love with her, Darien realized. He was oddly pleased with himself for noticing. Maybe Andrew's people skills are starting to rub off on me. 

Chad sighed again. "Doesn't even know you exist?" Darien ventured. 

"If only!" Chad said. Darien wondered what he meant. Then the shrine priestess caught sight of them. 

"Chad! What are you doing sitting down? You haven't even started on the storage rooms! And this courtyard is filthy!" 

"Yeah, I mean, right away..!" Chad jumped to his feet, one hand grabbing for the broom and the other reaching for his head. He dropped the broom, stumbled after it, shook his head again and ran off towards his chores. 

One look from her and he turns clumsy and tongue-tied, Darien thought. Just like I lost myself when that schoolgirl bumped into me. I'm so ashamed of the way I reacted to her! It seemed like all I could do to create some distance. I think I made fun of her hair; it kept me from accidentally saying something more personal. 

For days now he had been turning the incident over in his mind. My fantasy life is getting out of control, he thought. First those recurrent dreams. Then that sleepwalking, or whatever it is. Now I almost make a move on a girl four years my junior. 

He sighed, almost as Chad had. He propped his chin on a fist and slouched, still trying to make sense of it all. He almost missed the strange little group of visitors. 

There were three of them, all young men, all dressed in martial-arts uniforms in black and crimson, white hachimaki headbands tied about their heads. They went without hesitation to the largest building, the sanctuary, and disappeared within. 

Now what, Darien wondered, is all that about?   
  
  
  


"You what?" Raye snapped. 

"We offer challenge to the Sendai Hill School of Martial Arts," the spokesman for the three young men said patiently. 

Raye's eyes flashed. She opened her mouth, closed it again, then spoke sharply. "There's no such thing as the...!" 

"Your challenge is accepted!" Grandpa burbled. "What school did you say you were from, again?" 

"Grandfather...!" Raye hissed. 

The spokesman continued calmly. 

Raye glared at her grandfather. What did he mean, taking these idiots seriously! And what did he mean by claiming they were a martial-arts school? They were a Shinto Shrine! Sure, Grandpa had once had a few students, back when he was younger... 

Then Raye's eyes narrowed. She wasn't a Shinto Priestess for nothing. There was something intangible but definitely wrong about these young men. She thought she had sensed a shadowy evil about them the first time they had fought; it was far stronger now. Was this the work of some Earth-demon? Maybe it was the Negaverse again! 

Grandpa was about to speak. "I'm the school's best student and I accept your challenge!" Raye said swiftly. She shot Grandpa a look; he was too old and frail to be fighting! 

"Ah, Granddaughter..." He wouldn't be silenced. 

"Don't worry so much!" Raye chided. "This is what I was trained for," she added meaningfully. 

"You may not be ready," he said unhappily. 

Raye wondered what he meant by that. "In two days time?" she turned back to the challengers. "At six? I'll be ready!" 

"You need a second," someone advised. 

"She'll be there!" Raye said swiftly. She'd get someone from school, or one of her friends. 

The challengers left. After a bit Grandpa wandered off and Raye was finally alone again. This would be a good time for mediations, she thought. I wonder if my visions will have anything to say about this. 

And then a thought struck her. "I don't know anyone from school," she said ruefully. "I've been a little stand-offish," she admitted. 

Well, there was one girl she knew. The girl with the weird hair, and the talkative cat... . 

Suddenly, for no reason at all, the unflappable Raye Hino began to shiver.   
  
  
  


"Look at me, Raye! Are you watching? Are you?" 

Raye Hino rubbed her temples. "What have I done?" she muttered. 

Her young friend pirouetted, showing off the gi Raye had found for her, shouted an imitation of a martial arts yell, kicked high in the air...and fell sharply on her bottom. 

Raye sighed as Serena started to wail. "Stop that!" she said. "You're not hurt!" she added, unconvincingly. "I'll teach you some basic moves," she tried. 

Serena stopped wailing instantly. "You will? Really? You're such a good friend, Raye! Really!" 

And she meant it. Once again Raye was touched by the depths of her friend's feelings. She may be clumsy, and be a bad student, Raye thought, but she has loyalty and heart to spare. 

"And what is this?" Serena was already heading for more trouble. 

"Leave that bow there!" Raye snapped. "That's the Spirit Bow," she said sharply. "Very powerful against demons. Very dangerous to handle if you haven't the proper training!" Raye didn't mention that Grandpa had decided she herself wasn't ready, despite her archery medals, to take up the Spirit Bow of the Hikawa Shrine. 

"So when does this thing start, anyway?" 

"Oh, for...!" Raye resisted smacking herself in the forehead. "It's almost six already! Straighten that gi, Serena; they should be here any moment!" 

To Raye's dismay, others were coming in as well. Grandfather, looking unusually serious. And Chad. 

Raye wondered with a frown if he was attending to represent the honor of the shrine, or to take some time off work to watch a fight. Well, no time for that; the challengers were arriving. 

They came in a tight group, moving with the deliberation of a slow-motion scene in a movie, and the leader wore those dark sunglasses with the round lenses. All they needed was the Wong Fei-Hung theme blaring from a soundtrack. 

"The Seki School presents its champion," one of the seconds said, then stepped back again. 

"The Shrine School presents its champion," Raye's grandfather replied, and gestured loosely in her direction. 

The black-haired Shinto Priestess sized up her opponent as she walked deliberately to the center of the tatami mats. She was wearing black hakama, not her Miko garb, but her hair was still worn loose; the black wave of it reached below her waist. 

The Seki School guy tied a hachimaki about his forehead. His eyes gleamed with secret amusement as he did so. A strange rune was blazoned on the white headband and Raye's eyes narrowed again. Something was up, all right. 

Soon they were but paces apart, across the center of the mats. They bowed, slowly. Paused. 

"Begin!" Grandpa cried.   
  
  
  


Raye moved in with a direct attack. She struck clean, using the basic hira-ken fist, and let her weight bring her rear foot up; if he fell back she would be able to close with a follow-up, and if he fell to one side she could pass him with a powerful back-fist or elbow strike. 

He did neither. Raye looked up into his grin, losing her concentration for a critical moment. She ducked just in time, popped up a block that Serena could probably better, and shuffled quickly to grab some range. 

He stepped deep and sent a crushing hammer-fist through her block. 

Raye cried out as it caught her on the collar. She threw herself sideways. Follow through, she urged herself silently. Never stop moving! Out of the corner of her eye she placed her opponent. With her next stride she tucked her knee into her chest, then fired her heel back at him. 

It connected solidly and he went back. Raye spun on her other leg to regain her balance, brought up a guard and dropped her center of gravity low. She paused, panting for breath. Her shoulder burned. She shook the long black hair from her eyes and glared at her opponent. 

He smiled. "A little over-confident?" 

Raye gave up any hope of regaining her calm. That was an old man's way, anyhow; all this "harmony with the world" stuff. All she needed was to focus the strength of her anger, and beat the stuffing out of this goon! 

Raye ran at him again. He moved toward her as well and they crossed in the center of the tatami mats. 

She turned without lifting her heels from the mat, her hands in the last block they had held. Now her chest was burning as well. She'd scored on her opponent as well, though. He was shaking one wrist and looking dolefully at it. 

But he seems as strong as ever, and I'm already tiring, Raye thought. Strange. I've spent longer than this in morning kata. 

They crossed again, in an echo of the preferred style of the old samurai. And had there been steel in their hands, the match would have been over then. 

Raye doubled over. This blow had been more powerful yet. And she hadn't as much as touched him. Somehow, her strength was becoming his. With each blow she took she became weaker, and he stronger. At last, she began to understand the meaning of the strange hachimaki, and why they were challenging other schools. 

He wasn't waiting for her this time. As he closed in Raye blocked, jumped, kicked his arm down away from her, spun to elbow another blow aside, ducked under a swinging leg. The sweat was burning in her eyes and the blows she had already taken throbbed with blood. 

He struck again. And again. The blows were becoming crushingly powerful. They cracked into her guarding forearms, threw her palm back into her face, forced her knee back to the floor. Raye stumbled and fell. A foot landed on her. Another just missed as she rolled desperately. Somewhere in the distance she could hear Serena screaming, and Chad shouting something. 

Raye was outclassed. Completely. But she knew the fight wouldn't end so soon. They needed to take her energy, all of it, to feed the Negaverse as well as their own strength. 

The Seki School champion chopped down, a savage back-hand across her head. The room went black for Raye. "YAME!" Grandfather wheezed. 

"'Yame' yourself, old man!" The Seki School man came around again, lifted his foot to bring it down on the fallen girl... 

And fell hard. Somehow a sake bottle had rolled under his other foot. 

"Ah, he, he!" Grandpa said. "Sorry about that!" 

"You'll pay for that, old fool!" the Seki School champion yelled. He left Raye lying where she was and ran towards the little old man with the bushy white eyebrows and perpetually bemused expression. 

And fell heavily, cracking his jaw on the wood flooring. "Oh!" said Grandpa, startled. "You tripped over my stick!" 

"I'll do more than that!" The Seki School man took a wild swing at his diminutive opponent. Grandpa blanched and stumbled back. The blow missed utterly; the champion spun about with the force of it and fell noisily into the tokonoma. 

Raye propped herself up. She watched, in wonderment. "Drunken Style?" she breathed. "Can it be...is Grandpa really using Drunken Style, and fighting him?" 

"Sorry!" Grandpa said again, ducking in a clumsy way and accidentally smacking the man hard with his walking stick. "I didn't mean...!" The Seki School man had tried to grab the stick, and somehow got it in the eye instead. "Why don't you...?" Grandpa gestured towards the door, and the poor man followed the gesture and fell across one of the old man's big feet. 

The Seki School man was as outmatched by Grandpa as Raye had been by him. And it was his own strength that Grandpa used against him. At last he stopped trying to attack. He sat on the floor, rubbing his bruises. 

Raye looked up at her grandfather with a new respect. Their eyes met, and she realized she had been looking past him, or through him, too often. After this, we will talk, she promised herself. 

But it wasn't quite over.   
  
  
  


Mists were flowing around Raye's erstwhile challenger. Cries came from the mists, the clapping of wooden sticks, the sonorities of brass gongs. 

"Raye?" Serena asked tremulously. 

"Stand ready," Raye warned. "There's some serious Nega-vibes here." 

The mists parted and a creature hopped from them. It looked like a little old man, except for the dirty black wings and the long nose. 

"Tengu!" Raye hissed. For once, she was facing a properly Japanese monster. A Shinto beast, to boot. 

The Tengu bowed shortly from the waist. "A pretty little training hall," it observed in a cackling voice. "A proper place for a few basic lessons." 

Lessons? Raye wondered. 

"Hontai," said the Tengu. He kicked and the sake bottle Grandpa had tried to slide under him took off like a shot, slamming into the stomach of one of the Seki School seconds. "To remain calm and focused, gaining full awareness of all that happens about one." 

Raye pulled herself to her feet, slowly, and painfully. 

"Yomi," the Tengu said. A shuriken appeared in his hand and buried itself in the sword rack Grandpa had been about to reach for. "To read the intentions of one's opponent before they move." 

Raye stopped dead where she was, ceasing her attempt to sidle around the Tengu. It turned to leer at her, wing edges twitching. 

"You leave Raye alone, you big dirty bird!" Serena cried. 

"Ki-ai," the Tengu said. It shouted. Serena flew backwards, slammed into the wall of the dojo then slowly slumped to the floor. "The use of a shout or cry to focus one's energies, also, the direct use of those energies in combat." 

"This is between you and me, Tengu." Raye glared. "Leave my friends be!" 

"Atemi," the Tengu said, turning towards her. "The technique of striking at those vital points that bring great pain to, or cripple, one's opponent." 

Raye shivered, despite herself. She raised her hands in what she knew was a useless attempt to guard. 

"Hey, windbag!" a voice shouted. "You know how to fight, or do you just know how to talk about it?" 

It was Chad. The young man leapt from the raised platform and strode across the tatami, fists doubled. His face was terrible. 

Raye's mouth fell open. She'd never seen Chad mad. She'd never thought she would. He was distracting the Tengu; sacrificing himself to help her. "He's got more courage than I thought." Raye murmured with a grudging respect. 

"Kyotetsu-koga," the Tengu said, producing a weapon from one of its flowing sleeves. The thing had two short blades, and a short chain with a weight hanging from it. It looked very, very nasty to deal with. The blades glimmered as they aimed at Chad. 

Raye leapt at the Tengu's back. The steel ball cracked into her wrist and a big foot in wooden geta rammed her into the mat. 

"Really, now," the Tengu said. It reached forward to slap Chad hard across the face a half-dozen times and withdraw before the stunned young man even knew he was hit. It kicked Raye in the ribs with its hard wooden sandals. Then it reached into its sleeves again and sent a pattern of shuriken across the room, pinning Grandpa by the sleeves and trouser legs to the wall. 

"Don't you dare..." Raye gasped, "...hurt my Grandfather...!" 

The Tengu gave her the look of a dedicated bird watcher finding a migratory species out of season. "My, but you're a tough one," the Tengu said. "Don't the words 'give up' mean anything for you?" 

"Never!" Raye gasped. She pulled herself up on her elbows, gathered her feet under her. The Tengu flicked the kyotetsu-koga, Raye's legs went out from under her, and she crunched into the mat. 

"No!" Serena screamed. "Leave her alone!" Raye saw her young friend running towards her, tears streaming, pigtails fluttering behind her. 

"Naginata," the Tengu intoned. From a capacious sleeve came the full length of the deadly spear-like weapon used by warrior monks and the wives of samurai. The glittering meter-long curve of blade lined up on the breast of the running girl... 

A red rose shattered the blade into glittering fragments. Tuxedo Mask appeared in the shadow of the rafters as silently and suddenly as a Ninja. 

"Bonno," the Tengu muttered. "A momentary distraction, a moment of weakness an opponent may profit by." 

"Oyama Masutatsu amazed the world by defeating and throwing a much larger man at an international exhibition," said the young man in the black tails and white mask. "As the man fell, Oyama-sensei rushed in -- to place his hand beneath his opponent's head and protect it from striking the floor." 

Tuxedo Mask came down from the rafters, opera cape fluttering like the sound effect in a bad dub. "That is the true mark of a gifted martial artist," he said. "Not boasting of skills, not hurting the helpless." 

"This is the busiest fight I've seen since old Oda sent his men into the mountains after the Iga Ninja," the Tengu remarked. "Who is that masked man?" 

"I am Tuxedo Mask! Warrior of Earth, eternal champion of the Moon Kingdom! He that threatens my lady love is ever my enemy!" He slowly drew his cane, and took a dramatic pose. "On behalf of justice and love, I'll punish...!" 

The Tengu gurgled and dropped its arms. An armory of weapons fell clattering from its sleeves. 

Raye Hino wavered unsteadily. In her hands was the Spirit Bow of the Hikawa Shrine. The string still shivered from the release. 

"Couldn't you have waited for my speech to finish?" Tuxedo Mask muttered. 

"Tuxedo Mask!" Serena cried. "You saved us!" 

"Tuxedo Mask," Raye murmured. She lowered the bow. "Thank you for distracting him." 

"When the one I love is threatened, I will always be there," he said. There was another rippling sound of fabric as he leapt for the rafters, then vanished into darkness. 

"Sigh," Raye said, blushing deep. 

"SIGH," Serena said. 

"A nice little victory," the Tengu said, holding its side. "But you might care to wonder, descendent of Hino Tomoe, just whose it is." 

With a great flapping and much gasping for breath it took off and plunged into shadow as well. 

The Tengu, Raye thought. Boastful, and great tricksters, but never liars. Masters of all forms of martial arts, and sometimes teachers for mortal warriors. Legend had it Minamoto no Yoshitsune had learned his marvelous skill from the Tengu. Other legends say they created the Ninja. 

Interesting, Raye thought then. When the Negaverse calls a youma into life, they do not control the form it takes. That Tengu acted according to its nature -- not towards their plans. This may be something we can use against them. 

"Raye? Raye?" Serena was plucking at her sleeve. "I didn't expect all this hitting! Is it all over?" 

Grandpa came up to her as well, and his expression was more serious than she had ever seen. He looked at the ancient bow held tight in his granddaughter's hands. "It has just begun," he said.   
  
  
  
  
  


Next -- Grandpa and Yoda; separated at birth? Raye takes up the mantle of her demon-hunter ancestors, but first she must face three challenges -- and her most dangerous enemy!   
  



	11. DevilHunter Raye

  
  


Scribbler's note: I mean no offense by any comments I or the characters of the tale may make on any religion or creed. In anime, the major faiths of the world are treated shallowly; as mere sources for monsters and spells. I ask you to please accept this usage and not be offended.   
  
  
  
  
  


The mist roared. The air was wet and cold on Raye's face and smelled of wet earth and fresh blood. Cries, the clash of weapons, the scream of a horse came from the walls of mist about her. 

Raye walked silently, her white robes drifting about her like a shroud. A man staggered into view, crossed her path. He bristled with arrows and his breathing was loud and ragged. The sashimono banner projecting from the lacquered armor was as torn and bloody as the man. 

Two heavy objects collided in a clanging of weapons and snorting of horses. One man fell and lay in a broken heap near Raye. He was just a boy; face pale, black hair new to the topknot. 

The battle was all about her. In the enshrouding mist it seemed slow and ghastly. Horses wheeled, samurai charged. Arrows flew in whistling flocks and fell as sudden death. 

Raye walked untouched, unhindered. 

The castle smoldered. It lacked the thick stone footings that would follow the introduction of muskets, and it lacked sufficient defenders to put out all the fire-arrows that had fallen upon it. 

Raye left the battle raging on the plain and moved into the smoky darkness of the castle. The dead lay shadowed and grotesque about the outer defenses. 

To the keep Raye passed, and to the inner chambers. Within the innermost fastness ladies-in-waiting huddled with a few aged manservants. Bodies lay bloody on the floor, their lives cut out by their own hands. 

The lord's wife sat pale in white kimono, her legs wrapped with cloth, her dagger in both hands and already touching her throat. Her face held duty and pride and a strength that would need the aid of no second to aid her passage to the other world. 

She drew the dagger out to arm's length. Her arms tensed. Then, suddenly, her eyes fastened on Raye. 

"You!" she cried.   
  
  
  
  
  


THE SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS   
  


Chapter Eleven : Devil-Hunter Raye   
  
  
  


Raye held her teacup tightly in both hands, trying to draw its warmth within her. The strange cold that had come over Tokyo these last few nights was fading with the sun, as if it had completed the job it came to do and was needed no more, but inside her was a chill the heater didn't seem to touch. 

The garden was green and inviting and Raye let her gaze rest on it as she sat, drinking her tea, trying to recover from her nightmare. She was still in the yukata she had worn to bed, despite the sun already high in the eastern sky. The room was warm enough for that; even the garden was on the other side of glass-paned sliding doors. 

Grandpa was very concerned. Had it been up to her Raye might have pushed herself to throw off her forebodings and get out into the yard and get working. It wasn't like her to let time go to waste. But Grandpa had been at her side moments after she had woken in a cold sweat. As she came to breakfast she was met with not just pickled umeboshi and the luxury of toast and jam, but with a strong soothing tea of some obscure herbal blend as well. 

Her mind went drifting back, back to another morning and the arrival of a frightened and lonely little girl. A troubled little girl who's mother had died in childbirth, and who's father would no longer put up with a daughter whose very presence put a damper on his political ambitions. 

Then, the shrine had meant nothing to her. But Raye was not the sort of person who could live without something to believe in. Thus, she had begun to take a growing interest in the running and upkeep of the shrine. Soon she was in training as a Miko...a priestess-in-training. The Hikawa Shrine became her home. Grandfather become all the family she needed or wanted. 

Now Grandfather Hino was getting old. He no longer had the strength that had been his when she had first came into his care. And worse, within this past year it seemed his memory might be going as well. Perhaps he had spent too much of his life wrapped in the mysticisms of Shinto. Raye sometimes wondered how much he really saw, or cared to pay attention to, the mundane world around the shrine. It worried her, greatly, when his conversation veered from what she could see and touch. 

His reaction to her dream might be seen as another example of mystical hocus-pocus over rationality. But...Raye shivered, yet again...there had been too much that was far too real about that nightmare. Nor could she shake from her mind the warnings of the Tengu. For that matter, the very presence of a creature of mythology within her own home argued that other cautions should perhaps be given some scrap of credence. 

Grandpa had returned. He poured Raye a fresh cup, then served himself. He was silent, watching the garden with her, until Raye turned to him. 

"It has to do with the bow," he wheezed. 

"The bow," she repeated. "You mean the Spirit Bow?" 

"He was known as Hotei-no-taro; perhaps because of his great stomach, or perhaps for some other connection to the god." Grandpa was warming to his tale. "He was a traveling wrestler of such gentleness and strength that even those who lost to him in the ring had nothing but good to say of him." 

"He was a sumo?" 

"He is said to be one of the founders." Grandpa shrugged. "The important thing is, Hotei-no-taro went to hell." 

Raye looked at him sharply. He had meant it literally. Despite herself, she felt the tickling as hairs on the back of her neck tried to stand up. 

"He went to plead the release of a friend, whom he believed had been taken before his proper time. He made his way through the barriers and guardians with the aid of his great strength and his natural wit. At last he was brought before the King of Hell himself, who had been entertained and impressed by his progress. Hotei-no-taro promptly challenged King Emma for the soul of his friend." 

"To a wrestling match?" 

"To a drinking match. Hotei-no-taro's capacity was vast, but King Emma's capacity was not of this mortal world. He won, but so pleased was he by the entertainment it afforded him, and so near drunk and happy was he, that he let Hotei-no-taro return to the surface world...with a pouch of gold and a fine bow as gift besides." 

"So it is literally the Bow from Hell," Raye said, shaking her head. She had to keep reminding herself that Grandpa's background was much wider than hers. He was by no means pure Shinto, but had studied extensively in the Buddhist arts as well. 

She remembered, ruefully, why he had sent her to a Catholic school for her time in junior high. "The Christian spirits are very strong," he had said. "Someone in this family should learn how they are identified and controlled." Apparently Grandpa had gotten all he knew about Christians from watching "The Exorcist." 

For that matter, your average Buddhist monk would go into a laughing fit if you tried to talk to him about the "King of Hell." Raye knew _that_ much. But, strange as Grandpa's world-view might be, what she had seen in the past few weeks was possibly stranger yet. 

It made an uncanny amount of sense that a bow could be effective in fighting spirits. There wasn't a major shrine that didn't have an annual archery competition. The talism used as a target at Atsuta was reputed to be quite potent. Certainly, the crowds fought over it at the end of the competition! 

"When you took up the Spirit Bow," Grandpa wheezed unhappily, "you let the forces of evil know you had entered the fight against them. As it was with your grandmother before you, and with all the women of the Hino line before her." 

"The forces of...I let what?" Raye could hardly put a question together. "Grandfather, this doesn't make any sense. And what does it mean, anyway? So I used the bow. Isn't there some ritual or something I can do to purify myself?" 

"You could," Grandpa said slowly. "I said you were not ready." 

"Then let's -- wait a moment. Grandpa, do you mean I would have to put down the Spirit Bow? For good? I'd never be able to wield it again?" 

"I just don't think you're ready." The old man shook his head, eyes closed beneath the bushy white brows. But Raye had long learned how to read him. He meant there was a chance. Maybe a good chance. 

"Okay, Grandpa," Raye said. "Out with it. Tell me what I have to do. Grandpa," she said persuasively, "The Negaverse isn't going to wait for me to achieve Enlightenment. I need that power. The fight has started already, Grandpa!" 

"You must meditate. All day," Grandpa said unhappily. "And fast. And if you are properly prepared in mind and body, sometime in the night will come three visions; three challenges. If you pass, the Hino legacy will be yours." 

"Got it." Raye finished her tea with a gulp. "My fast starts now." She didn't intend to waste any more time. 

"Granddaughter." Grandfather could not find words. "Please be careful," he said at last. "There is more at stake than you know."   
  
  
  


Raye had never quite gotten the hang of zazen. The very idea of thinking furiously about nothing at all baffled her. She was an active person, normally. There was so much to do about the shrine, and the household, and so much she wanted to do in life, it was hard enough for her to merely sit still and accomplish nothing for hours at a time. 

She took some pleasure in sitting still on the hard surface, ignoring the growing pains in her joints and the pressures at the contact points. Of course that wasn't the point of zazen, either. One wasn't supposed to enjoy the pain. One was supposed to rise above it. 

She was deep in the shrine, behind enough wood to block most of the natural changes of light and movement of people that normally marked the hours. There was no clock to tick, and certainly no radio; nothing but the creak and pop of the bones of the building, expanding and contracting in the shifting sun. 

Warmth leached away, and some other sense of Raye told her night was in the sky. The planets were rising. She had always known her family had an affinity for the planet Mars. Even castings she did in the quarter of Mars were more successful. For what other reason had she named her two ravens Deimos and Phobos? 

She idly traced the patterns of the ranma above the door. Her eyes followed one curve as it twisted in and out like a snake. No, it was a snake; there was the head, there, carved in bas-relief above a spray of leaves. 

Had there always been a snake in that scrollwork? Raye blinked. The room was not the same. Similar, but different in various subtle ways. Before her on the low table was the ink pot and brush and hand-made paper of a sumi-e set. Before the tokonoma a sword rest held wakizashi and katana in ebony and red lacquered lacing. She was dressed, she realized with a start, in the complete -- and heavy! -- kimonos of a court lady of the Muromachi Period. She touched her hair, wonderingly, and knew it was up in the elaborate lacquered style of the court. 

Her gaze was drawn back to the scrollwork. The snake wound in, out, back again. The head pushed from the wood, a disturbing bas relief. No. It was not her eyes that moved, passing across loop and twist. It was the snake itself. 

It slithered slowly free of the woodwork, growing, taking on color. A long loop of snake lowered from the ranma until belly met the tatami. The head raised further, drawing the slithering coils behind it. The jaws opened, needle fangs gleamed, and the eyes looked at her with a cold reptile amusement. 

Raye leapt to her feet. She ran for the sword stand, wrenched out the longer katana, and shook it from its sheath with none of the proper preliminaries. With naked blade in hand she lunged at the snake. Her ki-ai was clear and proud and the cross stroke strong enough to sever a solid timber. 

The snake took the blade across iron-hard scales. A lightning flick of the tail caught her and threw her back behind the low table. 

Raye cried out. The snake loomed, hissed. Venom dripped on her leg; it bubbled and hissed as it ate into the fabric. 

"Granddaughter!" 

"What!" Raye snapped. The cold eyes were staring into hers. "Huh?" Raye said. 

There was someone else in the room. An old woman who carried herself with pride and poise. She wore the mon of the Hino clan, and on the chest of her robes a Taoist symbol was embroidered in red and gold. 

"Granddaughter," the old woman said again. "In each of your three challenges you must make a choice. In this your first challenge you have already chosen wrong." 

"Then help me, revered ancestor!" Raye couldn't turn to fully meet her gaze. She could not leave the snake with her eyes. 

"This is your challenge, not mine." 

"And that's all the help I get?" Raye's eye's burned. A single tear fell from her to splash wetly across the sumi-e paper. 

The old woman turned. "One thing more may I say. Remember, granddaughter, that sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword." 

"The pen is...? You want me to write an essay?" Raye jerked her eyes free from the snake. She had dropped the sword, but it was still within reach. Could she gain her feet, place the blade where it might do some damage before the snake could strike? 

It seemed as hypnotized by her as she had almost been by it. No, not at all, Raye realized. The snake was merely waiting for her to make the first move. Once she committed herself, it would strike. 

The venom was burning into her leg like acid. Raye bit her lip. Another tear fell on the pale sumi-e paper before her. 

Funny. Raye found herself looking at the two blots. They look almost like a pair of birds. A pair of dark birds of prey, poised there in the grain of the paper. A memory came to Raye of an old story... 

And that was the answer. Raye reached gently for the brush and lightly wet the ink stone, slowly so as not to startle the great snake. Then she touched the pure black ink to the paper in swift, sure strokes. She must let the essence of the pattern she wanted form itself from eye to paper without the distraction of thought. 

The shapes were true. They had to be. Deimos and Phobos were not pets. The two black ravens were friends, servants, confidants. They were warriors themselves; fierce, proud birds. 

The strong lines of their feathers, the sharp edges of their beaks, the fierce intelligence of their eyes took shape on the sumi-e paper. And as they did so, so did the ravens themselves. 

Deimos and Phobos stared with the gaze of predators. And the snake looked back with the hatred of a hereditary enemy. 

Deimos moved first; it looked like a peck for the eyes. The snake reared back, trying to protect itself -- leaving itself open to Phobos' attack. It swung, bloodied, at this assault from the side. And Deimos reached in, came back with a satisfied look and fresh blood on his beak. 

The birds were smaller than the snake, and they had less reach, but they were a bit faster, and a lot smarter. Time and time again the birds seemed to get too close, and the snake missed by a mere heartbeat, fangs slashing air, tail crashing against wood and tearing through the fragile shoji. 

But the issue was never really in doubt. And in time two birds were feasting on fresh bloody meat. 

Raye settled back behind the low table, tucked her feet in properly, and returned to meditation.   
  
  
  


"May I have this dance?" 

Raye shook herself. She took in the music, the couples about her, the soft drink on the table before her. There were paper lanterns against the evening sky, and a handsome young man in tuxedo and tails by her table with hand held out. 

"Yes," Raye sighed dreamily. His eyes twinkled behind the white diamond mask as he helped her to her feet. 

In a moment they were twirling about the floor. Raye was wearing her red silk dress with the Chinese collar, and tiny ruby button earrings. Her hair was loose, falling along her back in a luxurious black waterfall. She thought she had never felt so wonderful, or had a night so glorious. 

He was an excellent dancer. One strong hand rested lightly against the small of her back, and the other clasped hers with gentleness and strength. 

"You are always there when we are in danger," Raye said softly. "And we don't even know who you are." 

"I don't know myself," Tuxedo Mask answered. He guided her about the floor, adjusting flawlessly to the changing tempos of the music. "My past is a mystery to me. My purpose is a mystery. All I know is that I must come to the aid of the one I love." 

"The one you love," Raye sighed. Then she sighed again, even more deeply. "Am I her, Tuxedo Mask? Does this have to do with me being daughter of the Hino line?" 

"Granddaughter!" The voice was peevish. 

"Oh, not now!" Raye's eyes flashed. She tried to snuggle a little closer and ignore the old woman. 

"Things are not always as they appear!" her grandmother warned. Then she vanished. 

"It isn't always about you," Tuxedo Mask said. 

There was something different in his voice, now. Raye opened her eyes, saw his had gone hard and cold. 

"You're not..." she said. 

"May I cut in?" another young man spoke. 

"Jadeite? What are you doing in my visions?" The Negaverse General looked elegant in his dark uniform -- rather attractive, in fact. It wasn't right, Raye thought bitterly, that an enemy could look so good. 

"But things aren't what they appear!" Raye said aloud. "Is this the real Tuxedo Mask, now come to rescue me?" 

"Raye," the Negaverse General said formally. "Please allow me to take this dance." 

"Like hell, buddy. Go cut someone else out of a date." The one who looked like Tuxedo Mask had his lips twisted in a sneer. 

"Let go of me!" Raye shook herself free. Two young men were holding out a hand towards her now. One wearing the uniform of an enemy Another with the face of a friend (yet, how much _did_ they know about Tuxedo Mask, really?) 

But appearances were deceiving. That is what Grandmother had said. Tuxedo Mask looked at her with cold amusement. His fancy garb was, now that she looked carefully, stained and threadbare. "Why would Grandmother warn me, if it was this obvious?" 

"Why, Raye," Tuxedo Mask sneered at her. He lifted an eyebrow archly. "Why, don't you _trust_ me?" 

"Yes." Raye took his hand. "For now."   
  
  
  


And she was in a noisy room filled with smoke and gamblers. Grandmother was smoking from a long-stem clay pipe. She gestured at a go board, where two checkers sat, one black, one white. "Choose," she said. 

"Choose?" Raye looked at the simple checkers, and shivered. This would be the last challenge. And she understood what was at stake, now; it was her soul itself. 

Grandmother gestured impatiently. "Choose up." She puffed at her pipe. 

"Black and white." Raye was thinking aloud. "Like night and day? I'd choose day! Except. We need the night to sleep. And plants need the night to grow." 

Grandmother puffed. From a corner of the room came a cry of "Mah-Jong!" 

"Life and death? White meaning death, of course. But then the Christians do it backwards, don't they? That gets complicated." 

"Morning is coming, Granddaughter. And the Gate of Hell is opening." 

"Good and evil, of course." Raye almost had it. "I think I know what Grandpa was trying to say, now. You can see and fight the powers of Hell only if you are standing in sight of the Gates of Hell. But then, that's a Buddhist way of seeing things. I'm a Shinto Priestess." 

"Choose now and get it over with! Stop this sophomoric babbling!" 

"I choose..." Raye said. Grandmother froze, waited for her next word. "...I choose not to choose. I choose balance." 

Grandmother relaxed. "Very good, Raye." She smiled for the first time. "Very, very good." 

Raye yawned, suddenly, and passed in an instant from meditation into deep sleep.   
  
  
  


"So you knew Grandmother was going to help?" 

"Ah, he, he, he..." Grandpa held one hand to his head. 

"She was quite a woman, wasn't she." Raye suddenly understood. "And she came to you, too. She convinced you I was ready to take up her legacy. And told you she would be there to help as she could." 

Grandpa sighed. It wasn't just confirming her guess -- it was also him fondly remembering a remarkable woman. 

"She left some things for you," he said suddenly. 

The lacquered chest had been cunningly hidden. Of course. It sealed tightly and was lined with foil, like a tea chest, or the box an older person would use to store their best kimono. 

"A bow case?" Raye held the leather pouch up, puzzling over the straps. 

"For the Spirit Bow. It could be hidden under the clothes. Well, under the clothes of your mother's generation." Grandpa saw Raye's disbelieving look. "It turns eyes away," he insisted. "Very strong charms." 

Raye picked up a divining mirror in a leather pouch. She turned it over in her hands, admiring it. "Grandmother's old mirror. I'll bet it's awfully powerful." 

"This was your grandmother's working kit. She asked us to give it to you when you were ready." 

"A hanafuda deck," Raye held the cards up. "So what did this do? She could cast a divination with them? Call up the spirits of birds and animals to aid her?" 

"Naw. She liked to play solitaire on those long vigils." 

Filling the bottom of the chest was neatly folded fabric. Raye held it up, fingers caressing the supple fabric. It had the embroidered Yin/Yang symbol Grandmother had worn in her vision. 

Suddenly Raye was bowing to her Grandfather, bundles overflowing her arms. She beat feet to her own room. 

The outfit fit perfectly. It was more modern, and daring, than Raye might have given her ancestor credit for. A high-collared, sleeveless sheath in red silk, slit high for movement, with a short-waisted suede jacket and low suede boots. A kit on a tasseled cord held mirror, packets of herbs, tiny tightly-rolled scrolls. 

The Spirit Bow was in her room waiting for her. She fitted it into the case and found that, somehow, the length of it could vanish under her jacket. It moved with her, not hindering her moves even as she spun in a short trial kick. 

She brought the bow out, pulling back the string in one smooth movement and holding it taut by her right cheek. 

"Now," she said. "Now I am prepared."   
  
  
  
  
  


Next -- A vengeful ghost stalks Juuban Junior High. Who you gonna call?   
  



	12. Fearless Vampire Hunters

Scribbler's Note: The first new episode in a long while. A dozen books consulted for this one, plus I visited Tokyo myself, but it's still 20% fact and 80% B.S.   
  
There is no "Southern Temple" in Shiba Park, and I rather doubt the statuary from Sanju Sangendo (all National Treasures) would be found in such a place.  
  
  
  
  
  
There is a grave in the shadow of Victoria Peak. It is the only vacant plot in a very crowded little graveyard. The spot has good feng shui. That is not just important to the living, but it is important to the dead as well. And is it not the duty of a child to see to his parent's happiness -- no matter which side of the earth they might lie on?   
  
There were ashes left from the burning of paper money, paper clothing, paper automobiles, paper washing machines and paper 24" DVD-ready color televisions. One needed the creature comforts in the afterlife, after all. There was incense, and there were people well paid to keep that incense burning.  
  
And there was this plot, in a site with good feng shui, in overcrowded and overpriced Hong Kong, where even land that was upland of the dragon and downwind of the harbor still commanded insane prices. It was a vacant plot.  
  
In far-off Japan the body of a rich old man was being lowered into foreign ground.  
  
  
  
  
THE SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS  
  
Episode Twelve : Fearless Vampire Hunters  
  
  
  
  
Summer was almost here and Tokyo warmed quickly in the morning. "Grandpa" Ryo Hino was doing his constitutional behind the honden, on a bare stretch of earth near the garden shed. The old bones were stiffer than he liked. It would only get worse, of course. Recently, he'd had to cut his exercise back to a couple of hours each morning.  
  
"Hey! Yo!"  
  
A Buddhist monk -- under an enormous straw hat, violently shaking the bells on his staff -- came striding around the corner.  
  
"Oh," Grandpa said sourly. "It's you."  
  
"My my my," the monk shook his head. "What a dump this is getting to be." He was about Grandpa's age, but tall and thin as a string bean.  
  
Grandpa stopped his exercising and plopped down on the edge of a cart in relief. "What's new, you old bonze?" he addressed the man. "Still overcharging the bereaved?"  
  
"Still sticking straw in your hair and dancing around trees?" the monk shot back.  
  
"We still own our building, thank you very much," Grandpa retorted.  
  
"We've collected enough to replace that rotting roof." The monk squatted, himself, putting his straw hat aside.  
  
This was unprecedented. Grandpa skipped the next witticism and cocked a bushy eyebrow at his old friend.  
  
"There had been a man."  
  
"Ah." Grandpa wasn't running that slow, not this early in the day. He knew that funerals and all other arrangements to do with the dead were left by tradition to the Buddhists. He also knew quite well that in both their doctrines it could be bad luck to attract a recently dead and thus unsettled spirit's attention.  
  
Thus the indirection. But whatever had happened, it was important enough for his old friend to lay off the banter and get right to the point. Grandpa put his hands in his sleeves, and waited.  
  
"Mistakes were made. Procedures were not followed. Someone was made angry."  
  
"Ah." Grandpa puffed his cheeks. "The family?"  
  
"No."  
  
At that single word Grandpa Hino's bushy white brows shot straight up. "The angry one is where, now?" he asked.  
  
"Missing." Then in what seemed a complete change of subject, the monk asked, "I hear your daughter is doing quite well at her studies."  
  
It didn't take too long to match those tiles. "I will send her over to the temple after she comes back from school," he said. Then he added, proudly, "She is doing very well at her studies. Very well indeed."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Molly looked at the vacant spot on the low stone wall and drummed her fingers on the lunch table. Amy hadn't come to school and that wasn't like her friend, not at all. Perhaps she had gotten sick. Molly thought, wryly, that Amy would have to be sick indeed to miss a day of school.  
  
Molly understood, and deeper than she let on. Few people noticed how high her own scores were; she often placed higher than Melvin, the acknowledged class nerd. Part of the problem was her accent. She had come to Tokyo from Osaka, and she still had the strong Kansai accent, the remains of a dialect that had been spoken when Japan had been ruled from rather further south. To the people of Tokyo, she knew, she sounded a bit like a country bumpkin.  
  
Lately, though, she was beginning to get a little tired of people underestimating her. No, that wasn't quite it, Molly thought honestly. Something simpler and stronger was bothering her.  
  
His name was Maxfield Stanton. It was ridiculous! Molly tossed her head, trying to shake the thoughts out of it. She had no right even thinking about someone who probably didn't even remember they had spoken. And she wasn't ready for a relationship yet. Oh, no.  
  
It didn't do any good telling herself these things. She kept thinking about him. About the warmth in his eyes. About the troubled look on his face. She sensed he was in trouble, perhaps in danger. That he had done and was still doing things he wasn't proud of. But that he had a good soul.  
  
Oh, right. If it wasn't all so sad she would laugh.   
  
Molly picked at her food. It didn't interest her. She wished Serena was there. Or Amy, or even the new friend they'd made, that hot-tempered priestess at the Hikawa Shrine. She needed someone to laugh with, and share tears with. She wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. She had a hollow inside her and she felt as if she was going to explode, all at the same time.  
  
"Molly?"  
  
Sara looked around, then sat down by her. "We haven't seen each other much lately."   
  
Actually, Molly thought, she's been avoiding Serena. Sara was rather a different breed. She talked fast, was always a little on edge. She played hard, and studied hard when it suited her to do so. She dressed older than she was, and as daring as she could get away with. It was possible she even smoked.  
  
"You have plans for Friday night?" Sara asked.  
  
Molly looked up at her. She was tired of being a child, and she ready for a change, any change. "Where are we going?" she asked.  
  
  
  
  
  
Raye Hino was prepared. Tamagushi, check -- it was the one she had used last shichi-go-san, waving it over the heads of visiting children to purify them. Spirit bow, check; newly cleaned and waxed and ready for use. She was wearing her official miko outfit; the white under-kimono clean and pressed, the split hibakama trousers tied neatly, the chihaya with a subtle pattern of cherry branches over that, and sturdy zori sandals over her white tabi.  
  
Working kit, check. Divining mirror, charms and herbs, check. Cute sidekick, check.  
  
Okay, it hadn't been her intention to take Serena along on this investigation. It was just very, very hard to turn the blond girl down once she had decided to be in on something. Serena had arrived at the shrine just as she was getting back from school. And more proof of Grandpa's increasing senility; he had talked to Raye right in front of her.  
  
They took the subway from the Azabu-Juuban station, transferred to the Toei Mita line, and got off at the corner of Shiba Park. Minami-ji, the "Southern Temple," hid here in the shadow of the Tokyo Tower, isolated from the bustle of central Tokyo by park and city land on all sides.  
  
The pagoda was small and un-memorable, but the kondo rivaled the hall at Nara where the giant golden Buddha, the daibutsu, was kept. It was closed to the public at present, with tarps covering parts of the roof, pallets of fresh tiles stacked about the bare ground, bamboo scaffolding and painter's drops climbing the northern and western walls.   
  
Serena went running ahead. Raye's expression softened as she watched her young friend. Serena was such a dear once you got used to her. She was only a year younger than Raye, but already they were falling into an elder sister/younger sister relationship.  
  
Not that there weren't a few arguments. At quiet moments like this, though, Raye could honestly admit her own temper was partly to blame.  
  
"Serena!" she called. "No tickets; we're guests." Her voice lingered in her own ears for a moment. Do I really sound that sharp...that mean? Raye wondered. At least Serena didn't seem to notice. Or maybe she did but doesn't care. Perhaps...perhaps I'm not as nice as I should be towards her.  
  
A young assistant met them at the gate. If he was a monk, he'd chosen to keep his hair. He wasn't wearing robes, either. He escorted them through the grand gate, all intricate wood and steel-gray tile, and across the grounds. The workers had not been in this day. The kondo was empty, and quiet as a grave.  
  
Appropriately, as there was a small graveyard behind. The pagoda-like stones stood shoulder-to-shoulder, sifted with moss and the marks of age in a way that would make photographers whip out a camera but at the moment, just looked dismal.  
  
Makeishura, who in India had been Shiva, met them just inside the door with a scowl on his face and his staff upraised. Raye nodded in approval. It was a good deity to stand at the Southeast corner. Kannon Bodhisattva was further within, and his/her platform held four unlit candles and a single stick of incense. Even during construction, even with many of his fellow deities under protective wraps or shipped out for restoration by the wood-carvers of Kamakura, Kannon received his due respect.  
  
The two girls and their guide held their shoes in one hand as they moved, softly on stocking feet, deeper within the temple.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was so peaceful. No direct light splashed the deep-polished wood of the floor, but only filtered slowly through the shapes of the roof beams in patterns of soft brown and dust mote-filled rays. It was warm, and very still, and it smelled of wood and incense.  
  
Serena breathed deeply, her step slowing. Her feet moved quietly on the smoothly polished floor. The shapes of the deities, hand-carved in wood, turned by great age to incredibly rich dark tones, sat in the space without over-filling it, and without being lost either. Their faces were full of life and passion, grace and serenity. They were faces that had lived life with a fullness few human beings could aspire to.  
  
Serena saw a fierce man bulging with muscle, teeth bared in a grimace of rage, sword and mace upheld. But she knew, instinctively, this was no threat to her; his fierceness was directed outwards, towards evil. His anger was that of a protector who sees his charge being threatened.  
  
Across a dais a lady stood with open palm upraised. In her face was serenity. Not a lack of passion, not at all. A look of understanding and compassion for the world that almost hurt to witness. In the shadows behind them a bird-man with an eagle's look in his sharp eyes held a flute to his mouth with long, musician's fingers.  
  
In that quiet time, as they made their silent crossing of the hall of statuary, something in Serena changed forever.  
  
There are people, she found herself thinking, who cared. People who believed deeply enough in what they were doing to carve these figures. And to build this temple, and hold it together through war, and through poverty. That kind of strength...there are people who have that kind of strength. Who can work miracles for what they believe in, and for the people they care for.  
  
At that moment the comic books and the video games were as distant and ephemeral to her as last Autumn's fallen leaves. I want to be...I want to be that kind of person myself, Serena thought. Those monsters, that Negaverse, is trying to destroy everything I love, and nothing can be more important than fighting them.  
  
I want to be like Raye. Like Amy. I want to be strong enough to fight them. I can't...I won't...be like some people and try and ignore this evil that is going on. I need to be strong, and I need to pay attention, and I want to do something to do some good. This, this thing, I vow.  
  
The images were wood again. The moment of magic had ended. Serena bowed anyway, holding her palms together. "Thank you," she whispered. "Now I understand."  
  
  
  
  
  
The caskets sat on trestles in a small, low-ceilinged room. Serena shivered even though they were all empty. Then she shivered again; the day before, all but one had been empty.  
  
She watched as her friend inspected the room, the coffins, the air. She had some little mirror thing in her hand, and she said magical words, and she found something on the wall and asked smart questions about it.  
  
Serena was proud to be seen with her. She thought Raye looked just so professional, so much like she knew exactly what she was doing. Serena noticed, though, that the guy from the temple was doing a lot of looking himself.  
  
Serena's eyes narrowed. She didn't like the way the temple guy was ogling her friend. In fact, she didn't like the guy much at all. That's when she noticed him trying real casual-like to put his foot over a scrap of yellow paper.  
  
"Hey, what's this?" Serena said innocently.  
  
Raye stooped on it. Brought up a bit of flimsy paper with a bunch of old-fashioned writing on it. "An ofuda!" She shook the paper in the guy's face. "You knew there was trouble, then! You fools! You didn't even spell his name right; don't you know the charm won't work if you get the name wrong!"  
  
She turned on her heel with a snap, took a closer look at the wooden casket. "Ink!' she spat. "You inked it, too. But you forgot to snap a line around the bottom, didn't you!"  
  
"They messed up, Raye, didn't they," Serena said, pleased at her friend's success. "So where's the body?"  
  
"Walking around," Raye said. "We've got a vampire on our hands."  
  
"Vampire?" Serena said. "Vampire?! You mean like, 'I never drink...blood?'" The last was in a drop-dead perfect Bela Lugosi accent.  
  
"What are you talking about now, Serena? Sometimes I can hardly understand what you are saying. Have you got something in your mouth?"  
  
"Oh, we should have brought stuff! We need garlic, and stakes, and...I wish it was Christmas time; then we could get some Holly Water!"  
  
"Serena, that stuff is just in the movies! Besides, this is a Chinese vampire. The dead guy was a Hong Kong businessman. Chinese vampires don't go around in black capes and changing into bats and stuff. They're different. You have to use charms, and sticky rice, and stuff like that on them."  
  
"Oh...okay. So what do we do?"  
  
"We wait until dark." Raye sat down on a casket. She gestured for Serena to sit as well. Then she pulled out her Grandmother's old Hanafuda deck. "Do you know how to play Old Maid?"  
  
  
  
  
  
Nephrite, Dark General of the Negaverse, looked at his preparations and was pleased. Mysterious little stone idols, check. Torches, check. Bamboo mats, check. Coconut halves with fog coming out of them, check. He sipped at the Mai Tai, jotted another note. Two bartenders laid on for tonight, both established professionals. One was even Jamaican.   
  
The pianist was already here to help him interview the new singer. The rest of the house band was due at six with sound check at 6:30 prompt. A geeky guy at the rental house had tried to sell him a four-laser DMX-linkable space cannon but he had managed to scrounge a vintage mirror ball instead. Much more fitting to the decor.  
  
"Mr. Stanton?" The singer was here, a slim little thing with dark hair in a cute bang cut.   
  
"Maxfield." He stood. Smiled. "Call me Max." It was ready. It was good. Tonight, Tokyo would have a new Tiki Lounge.  
  
  
  
  
  
Night came softly on little furry feet. Evening spread across the sky in the shifting colors of an oil painting turned liquid, then moved slowly through the hues; through dusky oranges, subdued reds, striking violets, then deep rich purples and midnight blues. The first stars began to glimmer, shimmering and sparkling but brighter with every passing minute. As the last light faded in the west, a new silvery light grew in the east. The edge of the moon appeared on the horizon, glowing silver-white and liming the edge of the old temple with pale silver. The vampire got out of his casket and went to the door.  
  
"Huh?" said Serena.  
  
He was short, portly of build although quite gaunt now, and he was dressed like a Chinese aristocrat of the last century in long blue robes, pom-pomed cap, and...  
  
"EEEE!" Serena screamed. "Raye, he's here, he's here, the vampire, Raaaaye...!"  
  
"Under our noses all day," Raye scowled. "What a waste of our time!" She wrenched the Spirit Bow from its case. And got her over-robe at the same time, and it tangled in the straps, and the whole thing wadded up with malevolent intelligence and spun out of her hands across the dirt floor.  
  
"This isn't good," Raye said. Serena was still screaming. Raye leapt to her feet, an ofuda already in her hands. "Aku ryo tai san!" she yelled, and slapped the charm on the vampire's forehead.  
  
"Rargh!' said the vampire. It grabbed the charm and wrenched it off. The girls had vanished. "Rr-arg!" the vampire said conversationally. It hopped off in pursuit.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was happening again!   
  
Darien had been at home, dressing for a night out. He felt the adrenaline rush, first; the sense of urgency and danger.   
  
"NO!" he shouted.  
  
It wasn't going to happen this time! He wouldn't let his life be stolen, his mind taken! "No..!" he cried hoarsely.  
  
He fell to the floor. His fingers clawed in air. Fastened on a chair, tore at the cover then dragged it over with a clatter.   
  
He could feel a pressure on his face. It felt as if a mask was forming there. Somehow, without knowing how he knew, he understood it was a simple white mask. And that a top hat and opera cape belonged with it.  
  
The Princess! The Princess needed him! Her danger was like a stab in his heart. Darien knew her safety was the most important thing in the world to him. He was hers, and she his; irretrievably bound since time unknown.  
  
"No...!" Darien said again. "That's...not real! I don't know any Princess! She's just...just a dream!"  
  
He pushed away his new understanding, forced his mind from those paths even as his flailing hands managed to find a purchase. He pushed, arms trembling, lifting his body from the floor. It was worse than the last rep with a hundred-kilo barbell. Then -- it was a little easier this time -- he got first one leg then another under him. Finally, feeling as if there was a full bag of ready-mix concrete across his broad shoulders, he stood.  
  
He could resist. He didn't have to lose his self to this walking curse, whatever it was. But the pull was still there in a deep ache like a drug, like hunger, like an unrequited crush.  
  
Darien bent over, again. His face found his open hands and his sigh was more like a sob. It was going to be a long evening.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The vampire came around the corner. For a guy that could only move by hopping he was making excellent time. "Eeee!" Serena said, and ducked away.  
  
Raye spun about, sliding across the ground in a spray of dust. "Serena!" she shouted. She dug in a toe, raced back towards her friend.  
  
The vampire met her half-way. Raye body-blocked him and kept moving. She saw a crated statue just ahead and dove and slid behind it.  
  
"Rargh!" The vampire spun about, long sleeves trailing. In the moonlight his face was a cold, washed-out blue. In his sunken eyes tiny laser-points of red shone with an evil light. He opened his mouth and his fangs were as long as the yellowed nails on his claw-like hands.  
  
"Raye? Raye?" Serena whispered anxiously from behind a pallet of roof tiles.  
  
"I'm okay!" Raye hissed even as the vampire swung about again. It moved unerringly towards the blond girl's hiding place. "Serena!" she shrieked. "Look out!"  
  
Serena popped up like a jackrabbit and ran for another crate. Her foot caught a loose stone and it flew like a shot to the left, pinging loudly against a bronze bell.  
  
"Rarg?" The vampire was distracted for a moment. He took two violent hops towards where the girl had been. Stopped. Took two equally violent hops in another direction.  
  
Then started sniffing.  
  
Raye was only a few meters away. She crouched lower, until all she could see were vampire feet in blue Chinese slippers. The vampire snuffled and sniffed, testing the air. Moved closer to Raye. Still closer, the sniffing becoming more excited.  
  
Then the feet were right by her. Raye bit her lip, suddenly unable to breathe.  
  
"Ahrrr..." The vampire made a questioning sound. It jerked its head up, began sniffing in earnest. "Rrrgh?" It snuffled, then swung off towards the right.  
  
Raye gasped in relief. Then bit off a yelp as the vampire turned around and dashed back towards her hiding place.  
  
"Raye!" Serena screamed.  
  
The vampire jumped up at that, and hopped towards the blond girl instead. Raye thanked the spirits he was easily distracted. "Serena!" she hissed loudly. "Don't move, don't breathe! He can sense the life in your breath!"  
  
Then she clamped her lips shut. Almost immediately her face turned red, and she wished she hadn't said so much in one breath. But from a little ways off she heard Serena's "Huh?" and the vampire moved further towards that more obvious victim.  
  
Raye came up, slowly. Then came around the crate that had failed to hide her.   
  
The scene before her was chilling. Serena was backed up against the wall of the honden. The vampire loomed over the small blond girl, sharp fingernails centimeters from her wide frightened eyes. Serena's cheeks bulged, her chest heaved, and sweat trickled from her forehead in the effort not to breathe. In a moment she would gasp and it would have her.  
  
"Hang on, Serena!" Raye yelled. The vampire was not to be distracted, though. He pushed his cadaverous face close to the girl's, sniffing hard for the scent of human breath.  
  
In that moment of need the musoken, the "action without thought" that martial-arts teachings strove for, came upon her. In one glance Raye took in the working kit still slung about her shoulder, the moon-lit ground between her and the vampire, a broken piece of tile jutting from a half-opened pallet, and Serena's desperate face.  
  
She ran. One hand dove into Grandmother's old working kit, came up with an ofuda and unrolled it with a snap. The other slashed across the broken tile as she passed. The stab of pain was nothing to Raye; it could not disturb this moment of total focus. Her hand slapped the ofuda, painting the charm with her own life-blood. Then, in a last flying leap, she pasted the charm in the small of the vampire's back.  
  
He screamed. The ofuda immediately burst into flame. The vampire jumped up and away from the girl and went into a mad dance, trying to slap the burning charm off his back but unable to reach it.  
  
"Serena! Serena, are you okay? He didn't touch you, did he?"  
  
Serena looked up at her friend. Her eyes were filled with tears and her lip trembled, but she nodded stoutly. "I'm fine, Raye. You saved me!" She took a deep shuddering breath, then made a small smile. "Okay, we've got him on the run now! Let's get him!"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Tall and tan and slim and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking, and when she passes, each one she passes goes 'Ah...!'"  
  
It was good. The magic was there. The music lofted through the room as if riding on the faceted light rays spun out by the glittering mirror ball. The crystalline textures of hi-hat, the crisp rhythm of the clave driving everything, the soft bed of guitar and the lilting heartbeat of the acoustic bass wrapped her in a flowing robe of melody and rhythm.  
  
With a perfect knowing of her place in the dance Kimiko lifted the microphone again and spun out the next phrase.  
  
"When she walks she's like a samba, that swings so cool and sways so gentle, that when she passes each one she passes goes 'Ah...!'"  
  
The smile suffused her face. They were hers. From the club owner at his private table where he could see and be seen, to the two schoolgirls with the fake ID's near the stage, they were hers. As long as the music lasted she was forever young and desirable. Still a girl to be cherished and loved.  
  
Maxfield Stanton understood. With his knowing smile and his wry touch, he was one of those men who stood a little outside of the rest of humanity and saw more clearly, with more compassion, their little foibles.  
  
He saw through her schoolgirl bang cut, and the stuffed tiger in her purse, to see the young woman who knew the music business only liked the really young. And who knew time running out; the time she could continue to wear sailor-suits and giggle and still hope for pop stardom.  
  
Here, in this club, he made his own rules. And he had told her she could sing, could hold that audience rapt and loving her every move, forever...  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It was almost time. Nephrite smiled his secret smile. He had to admit he got a real kick out of playing human. He liked the challenge of playing by their rules, too, although he dropped them at once when ever they made him impatient.  
  
Maxfield Stanton, millionaire playboy, was almost real. Sure, he'd taken over a few minds at the start. But all his later investments were honest. The term "insider trading" hardly covered reading minds, did it? He had real offices and flunkies running them and a whole commercial empire that pretty much ran itself with only the tiniest input of dark energy here and there.  
  
The game was really so much fun. He got an extra kick out of making charitable contributions, mentoring a troubled teen, helping an injured man to the hospital (and paying all his bills when he got there). It bothered him not a whit that his Negaverse creatures were meanwhile wandering the streets at night sucking the life energy from their victims.  
  
He glanced again at the young woman singing for him, and his lips twitched again at the promise he'd made. Certainly she'd live forever. Her audience was another matter. He glanced at the microphone in her hand, the microphone marked with a dark sigil only he knew. In a few more moments he'd activate it. Just a little, this first night. He wanted the audience to go home drained, but to come back again. With any luck they'd blame it on the mixed drinks.  
  
He saw her turn to the lead sax. The man smiled, nodded. "In A, and one and two..." he would be murmuring to the bassist. The keyboard hit a ghostly pad to create some air, then let it die. Into the silence Kimiko brought up the intro in a soft voice;  
  
"Let me let you lift me, beyond the old routine..." Her voice grew in passion, the bass kicked that first note, "Play it softly," guitar and keyboard swept in, "play it sweet, oh Jazz Man...!"  
  
And the sax hit the opening solo of that old Carole King number with a brilliant gliss and a dead-on downbeat. The drummer was swaying, running a crisp kick-and-snare combo while the bass settled right into the hip-shaking, shoulder-twisting R&B groove. Nephrite could see the elbows of the keyboard as he hit that tight piano part in solid block chords.  
  
Kimiko smiled broadly and took the mic with confidence. "When the jazz man is testifying, a faithless man believes. He can sing you into Paradise, or bring you to your knees..."  
  
It touched him.  
  
For this moment the music, and the magic of the night, cut though the objectivity of the Negaverse General. For a moment the game of humanity was more interesting then the game of helping Beryl conquer another world.  
  
Nephrite scowled, trying to regain control of himself. He fumbled for the key that would activate the dark sigil on the Kimiko's mic. His gaze fell on the two schoolgirls at the front table. I know one of them, he thought. I helped her one day. He noticed she was looking at him, too, eyes nakedly open to the thoughts within.   
  
Tough luck for her, Nephrite thought. He touched the key.  
  
A light gleamed briefly on the singer's microphone. The mirror ball seemed to glow brighter. The textures of the music twisted higher and stranger, each tiny note touching the soul like an acupuncture needle. The singer seemed to glow, the room darkening about her as all eyes focused upon her. Only the Negaverse General could see the skeins of life-energy being drawn from each and every person in the room, pulled through the sound system and into the glowing storage ball.  
  
Then a vampire crashed through the south wall, knocked Kimiko off the stage, and kept going.  
  
A girl in a shrine priestess outfit ran on stage after it, shouted some charm in a piercing voice, then plunged after the vampire. A blond girl with pigtails longer than she was tall ran after her, babbling something about rice dumplings.  
  
"Oh, that does it! That just does it!" Nephrite knocked his glass on to the floor. The microphone was buzzing and squawking, Kimiko was sitting on the floor crying and the patrons were all waking up. All the captured energy had been lost. "I'm beginning to have some sympathy for Jadeite after all!"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They were running down one of the side streets of the Ginza. Huge signs glowed neon, snatches of music and gorgeous clothes on display both beckoned. On the main avenue a mere block away squads of aunts shoved through the dyed-hair posers and the Theiry Mugler-adorned posettes with their Takashimaya shopping bags at port arms.  
  
The vampire had a specific destination in mind. Every now and then it lifted it's face, sniffing loudly. It ignored the people nearby, taking at most a half-hearted swipe at someone getting too close.  
  
Raye was closing, but it wasn't easy. Serena was not in the same shape she was, and the blond girl was puffing hard. Plus, Raye worried about what she was going to do when she caught up; the Spirit Bow was still back among the empty caskets at Minami-ji.  
  
They almost ran past as the vampire swerved. He'd picked an overly little trendy place with lots of glass and chrome. And skipped the door, going right for a window instead.  
  
Raye went through the door even as the screaming started. The vampire was heading straight for a corner table and the plump young man in the spectacles there. One brave waiter and a diner who should have used more sense tackled the vampire and did absolutely nothing to him. There were more screams before the vampire picked up one of the men and threw him back through the window.  
  
"Aku ryo tai san!" Raye shouted. The vampire was alert to her this time, though, and way too fast to let an ofuda be pinned on him. Raye felt the heavy arm in its draping of funeral garb slam into her waist and carry her into the air. A table broke her fall, and she rolled off it with ribs smarting.  
  
"Rarghh!" The vampire declared. It gnashed its yellow fingernails then held them against the young man's throat.  
  
"P..p..p..pop?" The young man stuttered like a motorboat.  
  
"Pop?" Raye said.  
  
"Rargh!" The vampire said, in a definite kind of way.  
  
Serena! Raye worried. Where was Serena? Then she saw her young friend by the kitchen. "Oh, pulease!" Raye scowled. "This is no time to be thinking about food!"  
  
The vampire turned back to his victim. His yellow nails began to close. The young man's eyes bulged. Raye grabbed a chair, swung it up over her head. Serena ran across the room with a measuring cup and threw it, contents and all.  
  
"Ah, ah, ah, ah!" The vampire howled as the white specks hit him. He jumped up, landed on more of the stuff that had hit the floor, jumped up again like a man on a hot beach.  
  
"Sticky rice!" Serena beamed. "It really does work!"  
  
Raye made a complex mudra, her hands whipping through the motions. "In the name of Kannon Bodhisattva, by the power of Vishnu," she chanted, "by the grace of the Buddha I command thee to be still!"  
  
The divining mirror blazed suddenly with light, and Raye quickly popped it on to the vampire's forehead. He froze in place and his eyes went as blank as a corpse's.  
  
"Well, I'm glad that's over with," the young man said. He looked around the wrecked and all but empty restaurant, then at the damage to his expensive tailored jacket.  
  
"Not so fast," Raye said. "Why did he want you? You called him 'Pop,' didn't you?"  
  
"Um, sure." The man tried to sidle from his chair. "Look, if you want a donation to your shrine or something, I'm sure something can be..."  
  
Raye lifted the edge of the mirror. The vampire's eyes glowed again, and his hand shot out unerringly, restoring it's grip on the young man's throat. Quickly, she replaced it again.  
  
The man's eyes bulged. "You wouldn't!" he said hoarsely.  
  
"Try me." The dark-haired girl's eyes were flashing.  
  
"I...uh, yes, he is my father. We are both from Hong Kong. He meant to retire there if he could."  
  
"Go on," Raye said encouragingly. Her fingers played with the mirror.  
  
The man gulped. "He left instructions to be buried there. But do you know how much a prime plot costs these days?"  
  
"I am beginning to understand," Raye said. "You went back on his will. You wanted to sell that plot. Don't you realize, his spirit was looking forward to resting there? That his spirit would try to walk the earth if it didn't find its expected home?"  
  
Her eyes narrowed, then, and the little smile left her lips. "You did. Enough to warn the guys preparing the body. But they weren't serious about what they did. Their charms weren't careful, and they let him take form as a vampire."  
  
"Well, look, I'm sorry!" The man made a wiping motion of his hands. "So now I have to pay for an exorcism, or something, to get rid of him?"  
  
"Why do that," Raye said reasonably, "when the Narita airport is so close?"  
  
"The what? The who?"  
  
"You could be in Hong Kong by tomorrow morning. I'm sure your father will agree. Well-fed men aren't really the kind to become vampires, you know. They'd much rather lie down and be at peace."  
  
"I guess..." And all of a sudden the young man's eyes misted. "I guess I do owe father that much. He was good to me. And now that I see how important this was to him..."  
  
Raye pried the mirror off the father's forehead and put it back in its pouch.  
  
"Rargh," he said quietly. "Rrrgh." He brushed at a few grains of sticky rice that had stuck to his clothing.  
  
"Come on, dad." The young man took his arm. Gingerly at first, then with growing confidence. "I'm going to take you home."  
  
  
  
  
  
Next -- What happened to Amy? What is wrong with Grandfather? Who is Zoicyte, and what is that black crystal in her hands? Be there for the stunning end of the "Raye saga" -- Temple of Doom! 


	13. Temple of Doom!

Scribbler's Note: Time for the PG warning, folks. A little language, some strong situations, as what had been a game becomes increasingly serious.  
  
  
  
  
  
Nephrite sat at a lone table and nursed a Bloody Mary. All the other chairs were up, the lights mostly off, the stage deserted excepting a tangle of cables and a broken mic stand.   
  
"Well well well," said a sardonic voice. The blue eyes of the blond General flashed in cynical amusement as she strolled out of the shadows.  
  
"You have business here, Zoicite?"  
  
"Oh, nothing important is happening HERE," she waved languidly at the deserted tiki lounge. "Why do these pathetic creatures interest you so much? You must be easily amused."  
  
"You don't even begin to understand," he said tiredly. He felt his age, now, more than ever. He had been one of Beryl's generals for many hundreds of years. He had been there when she first partook of the Negaforce, and came to power in blood and rebellion. Zoicite was too young to know any of that. And too cocky, by half.  
  
He tried, just once more, to explain. "Yes, they are physically weak, uncontrolled emotionally, hobbled with all these silly beliefs about compassion and honor. But in every one of these little souls is enough passion to power every dark spell you or I could conjure over a month of trying."  
  
"And there's more." He pointed about the room. "When we trampled the combined forces of the planets and battered down the gates of the Moon Palace the humans were wearing skins and waving swords. Now they have tanks and bombs, computers and cruise missiles, and I'm not so sure they would still be a push-over for our troops."  
  
Zoicite laughed her glittering laugh. "Oh, come now, Nephrite!" She laughed again. "Can you really sit here, and tell me there is some HUMAN out there you think might be your equal in battle?"  
  
"Well, no," Nephrite bristled. "Of course I don't think that."  
  
"You've gone native," his fellow General said bluntly, "and it doesn't look good on you. No wonder our Queen sent ME to find the Rainbow Crystals."  
  
"Rainbow Crystals?" Nephrite looked up in interest. He had heard only the barest of legends about them, but those legends spoke of great power.  
  
"That bitch Serenity captured seven of our best warriors. She sent their essences to Earth in the seven Rainbow Crystals, to be held for eternity within human vessels. I'm going to be freeing them, and bringing the crystals back to the boss."  
  
She brandished the black homing crystal triumphantly. Nephrite was able to let his eyes narrow as if in anger and greed. Zoicite was as foolish as she seemed. She was far too transparent as well; it would be a wonder if the Queen didn't already know Zoicite intended to betray her and keep the crystals for herself.  
  
The Rainbow Crystals. There was something about the story of those crystals that touched a long-ago memory, a memory of those final moments of the battle against the Moon Kingdom, when Serenity had stood alone against the might of the Negaverse... This bore thinking on, indeed.  
  
"I have to go now," Zoicite said merrily. She tossed the homing crystal up in the air, caught it again. "Have to see a man about a monster!"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS  
  
Episode Thirteen: Temple of Doom  
  
  
  
  
Doctor Mizuno, Pediatric Resident at Juuban Central Hospital, frowned at the case history in her hand. Laceration l. femoral......50 mg hespirin i.m....epinephrine ordered 9:05...mild dyspnea, pos. flail chest...exposure through ant. lat. incision....ortho called 11:45...reduction and fixation with delayed closure...  
  
The words slithered and slipped, refusing to line up in meaningful phrases. It was a typical history for a trauma admission, and injuries typical to a car wreck. It was shattered bones and a patient in shock, deep surgical cuts and large-bore IV's and powerful drugs working quickly to save a life.  
  
It was her own daughter.  
  
She pushed the glasses up off her nose, rubbed her tired eyes with her fingers. The office was dark about her, only her desk lit with a shaded reading lamp.  
  
Amy was out of danger. Still in the hospital, still under observation...the danger of infection loomed large at this stage. But the worst of it was over.  
  
There had been an odd episode in the E.R. The open fractures had them treating for hypovolemic shock, and her core temperature had dropped to critical levels before a visiting clinician had correctly diagnosed neurogenic shock and helped the trauma team stabilize her.  
  
Doctor Mizuno wished she could have thanked him properly. He might have saved her daughter's life. But the American with the dark hair and the flawless Japanese had vanished as mysteriously as he arrived, leaving only a single name.  
  
It couldn't be real. It didn't even make sense. Amy had never as much as sprained an ankle before. She'd never even stayed home with the sniffles. Of course, Doctor Mizuno did wish her daughter cared more for playing outside. Maybe if she didn't have her nose in a book all the time she might have collected more of the normal run of scrapes and sprains.  
  
She smiled, just a little, in the quiet of her private office. Amy had always been such a little lady. Never in trouble, always home on time. Doctor Mizuno allowed, ruefully, it was a good thing, what with her own medical career.  
  
The changes had begun when they moved to this neighborhood. Amy had made new friends here, and an interesting crowd they were. Doctor Mizuno had met the Tsukino child several times and approved highly of her. Serena was not much of a student, but that alone might be a welcome influence.  
  
Then the Osaka child, who had been at the hospital regularly during her mother's mysterious illness. Doctor Mizuno rubbed her eyes again. She had the strangest impression that her daughter knew more about that whole incident then she had let on.  
  
Recently Amy had been spending time at a local Shinto Shrine. Perhaps it was just her friendship with the rather striking-looking girl there, a girl from another school. Doctor Mizuno smiled again at a thought. Soon enough she'd have to worry about the strange BOYS Amy would be hanging around with.   
  
No, it was no use playing the ostrich. She might not have the raw intelligence that blazed in her daughter, but stupid people rarely made residency at a major hospital. Something very strange was going on in Tokyo, and it had been going on for several months now, and her daughter was at the very least sharp enough to know it.  
  
Amy had been at the jewelry store where Molly's mother and several shoppers collapsed. Oddly, she said Serena had done the workman-like first aid on their injured friend, and Doctor Mizuno believed her. When those two buses full of children had gone missing, Amy was also out very late; she had come home without explanation.  
  
And then a police detective had brought her daughter to the emergency room. And refused to give a detailed explanation. And vanished into the bowels of his own bureaucracy allowing no further questions.  
  
What had Amy been doing that night? Why was she so weakened she had nearly died in E.R.? And what could have struck her with such force as to break every bone in both legs, shattering them in almost a dozen places?  
  
It was going to be a long, painful recovery for the both of them. It was too early to tell but the head of orthopedics assured her -- as a colleague, and not just as a mother -- that not only would Amy regain full mobility, but that scarring would be minimal.  
  
Except. Except. Except for the reason she was down here, hiding in her little office, instead of by her daughter's bedside. Amy was carrying some secret, terrible burden with her. A burden that had weighed her down until she could no longer fight.  
  
Perhaps that was what Jarod had seen with those piercing black eyes of his, and thus understood the danger she was in from neurogenic shock. Amy had given up. She almost quite fighting for life on the table, and she wasn't fighting now. She barely picked at the soft foods she had been graduated to, and she went through the range-of-motion exercises with a plodding dullness.  
  
What had happened to Amy? What was happening to her world? Doctor Mizuno bent slowly, folding over herself as the tears began to come. Her forehead touched the table. And stopped there.  
  
No. She wouldn't quit on her daughter. Not now, not ever. The young doctor straightened in her chair. The wall clock behind her slowly clicked towards midnight.  
  
In the morning, then. They were well overdue for a little mother-daughter talk.  
  
  
  
  
Darien was dancing. At the edges of his dream vision was the shining white marble of the grand ballroom of the Moon Kingdom. She was in his arms, so light on her feet she seemed to be floating. She was so close all he could see were the great blue depths of her eyes and the soft skin of her cheek, white-lit by earthlight.  
  
Her breath tickled as she spoke. "Find me, my Prince. It is our destiny to be together always. The Seven Rainbow Crystals are the key. They will lead you to me."  
  
  
  
  
It was now four A.M. Greg dreamt, too. He dreamt of futures unknown, futures that might have been, and futures that would be. He saw the Scouts, smart and determined in their colorful uniforms, as they fought to save their world. He could see clearly, now, how without their Princess to guide them and bond them into a team they drifted apart. He could see each Scout as she fought alone; fought, failed, and was overcome.  
  
A vision was becoming clearer, coming forth from the mists of what might be, becoming the shape of what must be. He saw the Moon Princess discovered at last. Without the Scouts, then, she faced Queen Beryl alone.  
  
In the eyes of that tiny, frail blond in the long white dress, Greg saw reflected the only decision she could make. He saw her begin her walk towards Beryl and the dark pool of the Negaforce itself.  
  
These days, he hardly bothered to wake up screaming.   
  
  
  
  
  
Grandpa cried out. Chad dropped the sword and hurried to him. It was morning, and chill, at the Hikawa shrine; the sun had yet to reach through the trees to touch the buildings or ground.  
  
"Don't worry, Grandfather," Chad said as he helped the old man sit and began to knead the muscles in his back. "I was studying massage even before I came here. I might not be very good at the kata, but cramps I can deal with."  
  
"This body betrays me," Grandpa groaned, "and just when my daughter needs me most."  
  
"I understand," Chad said. "I understand." He did. He knew the danger Raye faced. It filled him with such pride to watch her work, to see her skill and strength. But he was also so afraid for her. It was all he could do to stand aside. Yet, in this hour of need his own body was not up to the task. He didn't have the speed or the coordination to last a second against the enemies she fought. Sometimes, he thought ruefully, dumb courage just isn't enough.  
  
He continued massaging his teacher's back, working to relieve the pain that had struck him down once again. There was a little awe in him. Chad wondered if Raye truly understood just what Grandfather Hino had been in his day.  
  
He had spoken just a little. Once he told Chad of Tama Hino. In the thirties she had been a tiny thing with flashing eyes and the same long black hair as her granddaughter. About her lips and eyes was always a sparkling laugh; she was quick to see the humor in the everyday, and just as willing to laugh in the face of danger.  
  
It had been one of the things Grandfather loved about her. He didn't say, but Chad understood from the few bits of stories he'd gotten out of him that Ichiro Hino had been a practiced martial artist, a world-traveler, and just a bit the heroic adventurer himself. Between the two of them they had tackled demons and supernatural threats from a Yeti in Tibet to an attempt to assassinate the Russian premier.  
  
Perhaps they were just stories. Perhaps in the twilight of Grandfather's days he wished to see himself as someone who had accomplished great things in his time.  
  
Be that as it may, Grandfather was his sensei, his teacher, and Chad valued what he was learning. He might never get very good, but against the danger Raye faced, every little bit had to help.  
  
Grandpa motioned him to stand again. Chad took the sword. Sweat was coming freely from his brow. He moved yet one more time into the steps of the kata.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was full day and hot. Raye sweated in the thickness of her official Miko outfit. The crowds pressed about her with Saturday gaiety. The air was thick and muggy and something not too far away had gone bad. Raye tried to replace her frown with the ethereal gaze of a Shrine Priestess. She felt a head-ache coming on.  
  
Grandpa had been up early again, trying to train Chad. He was pushing himself too hard, Raye knew. He was losing focus, already stumbling although the hour was only a little past noon. The morning mail had brought a letter from the Shrine Association that had him muttering unhappily, but he had refused to show it to her or explain what it had said.  
  
Before ten a policeman had dropped by. Many Japanese referred to the local policeman in his blue koban, or on his bicycle or strolling about his route, by the friendly nickname "Mister Walkabout." This policeman had not been a friendly neighbor. He had visited cold and officious, not caring how the thronging visitors to the shrine looked sidelong and wondered and even pointed sly fingers.  
  
Grandpa had held this shrine during wartime. Raye had heard, here and there, how the government had taken over the shrines for the institution of "State Shinto." How the thought police and the Kempetai were everywhere during those years. Grandpa never spoke of that time to her, but she was sure that even now the presence of cops in the shrine unsettled him.  
  
Another brat came by to be blessed. The doting mother made a fuss about finding enough coins for the two-hundred yen "donation." As Raye knelt and made the three passes, the child started crying. The mother quickly handed his ice cream back...which promptly transferred itself to Raye's clothing as well.  
  
She was truly glad to see Serena. For a long moment she wanted to retreat to the cool shade of her room, shut out the bothersome crowd, and read comic books with Serena until evening. "Raye, your blond friend is here," Grandpa called to her. "You have such pretty friends," he burbled on.  
  
Raye turned red. Didn't he realize what it sounded like when he said something like that? That was all they needed, for him to get the reputation of being a dirty old man!  
  
At that moment her eye was caught by a flash of blue. Another uniformed officer. That did it. Someone, somewhere, was trying to stir things up. Someone must have decided the shrine really did have something to do with those missing buses -- the buses SHE had rescued from the Negaverse.   
  
"Serena!" she called as her friend bounced towards her. "I'm so glad to see you!"  
  
She dropped Serena off at her room and pointed her to the latest issue of Sailor V. Not that Serena needed pointing. Then Raye shucked the ice-cream damaged Miko outfit for more comfortable jeans, and headed to the central room to see what help her visions might give her.  
  
  
  
  
  
Evening was coming. The visitors had slowed to a trickle. Grandpa was exhausted. The now and the then blurred for him. Sometimes it was he and Tama Hino as they fought together against evil. Sometimes it was Raye, the very image of her grandmother. Raye and no-one else; she fought alone. His time was over; he had no strength left in his frail body. That boy Chad was nice enough, but he, too, did not have the strength he needed to help her now.  
  
And evil had come to the shrine again. Grandpa could feel it with every instinct he had.   
  
"You are right, old man," the woman said. Grandpa blinked. He hadn't noticed her until now. And had he been speaking his thoughts aloud?  
  
"But you haven't looked close enough for your evil, old man. You need to take a better look...at yourself!" For some reason that struck the blond woman as funny. She laughed, a tinkling brittle laugh.   
  
Grandpa couldn't see her clearly. It wasn't just his failing eyes; it was, he realized, growing dark. He hadn't even noticed to turn on the lights. Something in the woman's hands was glowing, however. He found his eyes pulled towards that glow. Something stirred deep inside him in answer to that beacon.  
  
Then it hit him with the sharp pain of a heart attack. Something was being pulled from his very soul! He cried out, hoarsely. Before his unbelieving eyes a crater opened in his chest.  
  
It had caught him by surprise. He was too rusty by far. He still rallied as quickly as he could, bringing all his spiritual resources to bear.  
  
It was agony. He bore it, reaching for strengths he had almost forgotten he had. The hole closed again.  
  
"Why does everything go wrong for me on this crappy planet!" the strange woman snarled. "Zoi!" she shouted. Blossoms of energy rained down at Grandpa, slashing into him, forcing him to his knees.  
  
"Let's see if that softened you up a little!" The woman gave a harsh little chuckle. Her hand raised again, the glowing thing in it, and Grandpa felt the inexorable pressure again...  
  
  
  
  
  
Serena heard a scream and started running. Raye popped out another door somewhere ahead of her and ran, too.   
  
It was dark outside, but light was pouring from Grandpa, lighting the Negaverse General and the black crystal in her hands. As Grandpa fell silent his chest opened up. A yellow jewel emerged, floated across towards the blond woman.  
  
"I think I'm going to be sick," Serena said. She meant it. She liked Raye's Grandfather a whole lot. She couldn't bear to watch what the Negaverse woman was doing to him.  
  
"Don't bother, brat," the woman said. "Do us all a favor and die, instead!" She raised her other hand, began a gesture...  
  
A black shadow whipped through the air just in front of her. "You might want to pay attention to business, Zoicite," a new voice said.  
  
"Tuxedo Mask!" Serena cried. "You're going to save us!"  
  
And she had thought things couldn't get any worse. The tall young man in the black tails and the white mask turned slowly. His eyes were different then they had been and they looked at her with only polite interest. "Some other day, perhaps," he said coolly. "All I came for this time is...this."   
  
Zoicite opened her own hands and swore. In the white glove of their one-time rescuer was a glittering yellow jewel. "With these," he said as softly as if to himself, "I may find out who I really am."  
  
Then he moved a swiftly as a shadow and vanished into the evening.  
  
  
  
  
  
Grandpa was gone. In his place was something larger. It moved, chest rising to pull in air, thick arms bracing to help itself off the ground. Raye saw red skin, horns, a tiger-skin loincloth. "Oh, shit," she said. "Serena!" she yelled. "Get out of here! Now!" She gave her friend a brutal shove.  
  
The Oni stood full upright. "Girl!" it hollered, fanged mouth opening in a broad smile. Raye started to run.  
  
She shot towards the corner of the honden and zigged a quick left. She could hear the Oni behind her. She hit the narrow space between buildings, ducked, changing direction quickly. Okay! Now a quick left turn and double back...no, no, right! Right! A taloned, muscular arm barely missed it's grab and Raye shot back towards the main entrance, Oni hot on her heels.  
  
The Negaverse General stood in the clearing before the large torii gate and laughed and laughed.  
  
Raye ducked again, zagged instead of zigged, then zigged instead of zagged. Somehow she was going back towards the honden again, and the Oni was still panting right behind her. Her wind was going, fast.  
  
It grabbed her. Raye shrieked and ran right back at the creature. She dove right between its legs and came up with Spirit Bow in hands. Thank the kami she had reached for it when she first heard the screams!  
  
"Wait, wait!" Raye cried. The Oni continued to advance on her. She pulled back the cord and held a steady aim on his broad chest.  
  
"Threaten Oni with little stick," he said. "Mine is bigger," he said, shifting the club from his shoulder.  
  
"Don't talk to her," Zoicite called. "Just eat her!"  
  
"Not going to EAT pretty girl," the Oni complained.  
  
"Y..you can't," Raye said. "We're RELATED." The Oni was still getting closer. "Wait, wait!" she screamed. "Why are you taking orders from her, anyway?"  
  
"Come on, I haven't got all day," Zoicite called. It was bad timing for her.  
  
"Oni have family, too," Raye pressed. "Are you going to hurt one of your family, because some strange woman tells you to?"  
  
"Sound like wife," the Oni said unhappily.  
  
"That's right, let some stranger order you about." Raye let the words come with the rhythm, the gestures of her Grandmother. She laughed, and it was Tama Hino's very laugh. "What kind of Oni are you, anyway?"  
  
"Not liking people order around. Not wanting girl with dark hair now. More flesh on woman anyway."  
  
It was Zoicite's turn to blanch. As the Oni turned and loped her direction she gestured quickly. The rose-petals that were her signature whipped about her as she beat a quick retreat back to the Negaverse.  
  
  
  
  
  
Serena had to keep from clapping. She stayed hidden under the low bush at the very edge of the shrine. The big red demon stood with club in hand, looking confused, as the last energy-petal faded away.  
  
"Hokay," it said suddenly. "Settle for girl with black hair after all! Then dinner -- very hungry after five hundred years!"  
  
Raye snarled, a sound of pure rage. Serena gasped as her friend drew the Spirit Bow in one vicious move. Mystic light glared from her forehead as her friend focused her energies. Cool, Serena thought in one corner of her mind. Raye has so much spiritual power she can even make symbols appear on her forehead.  
  
The anger that Raye had so much trouble controlling reached a peak. The Spirit Bow quivered, reaching towards the heart of the creature that had once been her beloved Grandfather.  
  
"Raye! Noooo!" Serena screamed.  
  
The bow shivered with release. The glowing energy-shaft sprouted in the Oni's shoulder. It wailed in pain and disappointment.  
  
Lights were suddenly everywhere. Figures were pounding up the stairs, crashing through the main entrance, spreading out across the grounds. The Oni gave a last sob of pain and dove into the bushes. Raye gave a similar gasp and vanished as well.  
  
Then police were everywhere. Serena huddled lower and began to wriggle backwards. She couldn't see where the Oni had gone, or her friend. Police in riot gear were pounding at all doors, including the very honden itself. Flashlights were everywhere, more cars and vans were appearing, police tape was already unrolling about the scene.  
  
In the middle of the excitement, hands deep in the pockets of his trench coat, was Detective Kenjiro Yamamura.  
  
  
  
  
  
Next -- Two Scouts down, two Generals now on Earth and Beryl about to fulfil her destiny. But that doesn't faze the new girl in school. Can Lita defeat the Negaverse, ferret out the secrets of Deparment Six, and find a way to forget her old boyfriend?  
  
Be there for "UFO Catchers" ...and I'll show you! 


	14. UFO Catchers

Scribbler's note: This episode and the next draw material from Karl Taro Greenfeld's "Speed Tribes" and Ian Buruma's "Behind the Mask." Consider the PG warning to be in full effect, as we will be looking at a darker and seedier side of modern Tokyo.  
  
One of the flaws in my writing method is that the end result looks simple and obvious. Getting to that simplicity is anything but. I spent forty hours planning the Lita chapters before I wrote a single word. My apologies for how long it took. ^_^;;  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Serena walked to school.  
  
The sun was warm on her face. The pleated skirt of her school uniform swung against her legs with each step. She had plenty of time.  
  
She had plenty of time to think. Serena had slept badly and awoke early. Luna was still sound asleep. She had washed her face and quietly dressed in her school uniform without disturbing the cat's slumber.   
  
When she padded downstairs in her house slippers she had found her mother was on the phone. "Mom?" she asked.  
  
Ikuko Tsukino's face was tense. She met Serena's gaze with a look of motherly concern and caring. "I understand," she said into the phone. "I'll let her know immediately." She hung up softly.  
  
"Mom?" Serena said again. Her hand crept to her mouth.  
  
"That was Mrs. Mizuno," her mother said. "It's about Amy. Serena, I think you should sit down."  
  
The light of morning was in the kitchen. A vase of fresh flowers sparkled on the counter. Outside, the warm earth tones of summer were creeping in and the sky lightened with the promise of a cloudless day. Serena sat, slowly, perching on a kitchen stool and waiting for her mother to speak.  
  
"There was an accident, Serena," Ikuko said gently. "Your friend Amy has been in the hospital this past few days."  
  
"No!" Serena jumped to her feet. "I have to go see her!"  
  
"Serena." Ikuko did not raise her voice, but suddenly the strength of the mother who held a household together -- who held the family budget and raised the children -- was in it. "Serena, she doesn't want visitors. When she had recovered enough to talk she was very firm on that. No visitors."  
  
"But...but why?" Serena found herself sitting again. Her eyes filled. She ached to go to her friend's side, to fold Amy within her arms and comfort and protect her. Why had Amy rejected her? Why couldn't she go to her friend now, when she was most needed?  
  
"Serena, I don't know." Ikuko Tsukino met her daughter's gaze with the quiet compassion that was hers. She reached out and gently brushed a loose lock of her daughter's hair back from her face and tucked it into one of the two knots of hair at the top of her pigtails.   
  
"People react differently to being in an accident," she said at last. "Amy might be blaming herself, thinking it was her fault she was injured, and she might be too embarrassed to see anyone. Or she might be trying to forget what happened, and she is afraid that seeing her friends might bring out the wrong memories."  
  
"I don't understand," Serena said. But she did. In some deep place in her heart something resonated with what her mother had said. She could understand, however imperfectly, how Amy might be both afraid and ashamed. Afraid to remember the fear and pain, even more afraid to say or do anything that might bring it on again. And ashamed of her fear, ashamed that she had let herself be injured. Ashamed, even, that she might be letting her friends down.  
  
For that moment Serena thought she could see things how Amy saw them. She wondered in that moment what it was like for Amy to always have to live up to her reputation and the expectations of others. To always have the right answer. To always be quiet, calm and collected. Serena wondered if Amy ever wanted to just let go for a while; to be silly and make mistakes and not have to be the girl every one kept expecting her to be.  
  
Amy was her friend. Serena owed her a debt of honor, of duty; to lend all compassion, to stand by her, to help her to recover or to let her find her own path. Even if it meant staying away until Amy was ready to see her again.  
  
"You don't have to go to school today," her mother said after a time. "I can phone your homeroom teacher."  
  
"That's okay," Serena had made a small smile up at her mom. Luna was still asleep upstairs as she picked up her bag and left the house.  
  
Now her head was down as she walked, deep in thought. She was almost to the school. Other students were walking near her. Some might have looked towards her, even waved at her, but she hardly noticed them.  
  
The Negaverse was winning. Amy was out of the fight. Raye was missing. Something...something had changed in Tuxedo Mask. This last was a special pain to her. She had grew to depend on his last-minute rescues. But he hadn't been there when Raye needed him most. And he had failed Amy, too. She was in the hospital now, hurting and alone. Serena felt an almost personal sense of betrayal...a great sadness, as if some sacred bond had been thrown away.  
  
And Grandfather. Despite the warm weather Serena shivered. Raye's grandfather had been turned into a demon, an oni, as big and red as the...  
  
...delivery van hurtling right for her! The horn blared, brakes squealed and locked as it tried desperately to stop before it struck...!  
  
Then a strong arm in tan school blouse scooped her up and carried her out of the way of the truck. It slid past so close the breeze pulled her pigtails after it.   
  
It was a tall girl with a brown skirt and flashing green eyes and a long auburn ponytail. She carried Serena across the street and put her back on her feet safe on the other side.  
  
"You should be more careful," the girl said over her shoulder as she walked away. Serena caught a glimpse of a rose earring. The girl was striding off, heading for the main entrance of Juuban Junior High.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
THE SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS  
  
Episode Fourteen : UFO Catchers  
  
  
  
  
It wasn't a bad little school. It was a very good neighborhood. Lita had grown up in Azabu and understood the old money and new capital that operated in that hilly, eclectic neighborhood. Juuban Junior High had an educated, upper middle-class student body, and it wouldn't hurt to have that in her background when she was applying for the Cordon Bleu, the exclusive French cooking school.  
  
Lita was monumentally unconcerned whether her own reputation had followed her. If they wanted to consider her a trouble-maker, like her last school had, that was a problem of their own making. What she cared about was completing her schooling, and polishing her skills, until the day came when she could make a try for that all-important audition.  
  
"Hey, you!"  
  
Lita turned just far enough to confirm that this was a teacher. Or perhaps a teaching assistant. She noticed with quiet amusement that she stood taller than this slight man in glasses.  
  
"That's your old school's uniform!" the man said as if he was a lawyer and court was in session.  
  
"They didn't have one in my size," Lita shrugged.  
  
"And we don't allow perms!" the teacher shot again.  
  
"This is natural," Lita said simply. He had nothing more to add, so she turned away and continued towards her class.  
  
At lunch she fetched the bento she had made herself and found a seat towards one end of the courtyard. To her satisfaction the radishes had held up well, without discoloration, and the rice was properly aglutinous.   
  
She was not surprised to find no-one approached, or invited her to share their table. She always seemed to be a little on the outside, looking in. It might be her size was off-putting. Lita had always been big. At that time in a young girl's life when the boys began to outgrow her, match her then surpass her in strength, Lita had kept growing. She had never became conscious of being the "weaker" sex. She had never in her life had to back down.  
  
But being so big, and being so confident, made it hard to fit in with the usual crowd. She was living on her own, besides. She was buying groceries and paying bills when most girls her age had no more to worry about than slipping math grades and who was seen with whom. It made it harder to relate to them.  
  
On the other side of a planter one interesting group was in earnest conversation. A girl with a soft country accent, a girl with glasses, and a girl with odd-looking balls of hair on her head from which came two pigtails longer than the girl herself.  
  
Lita sighed wryly. They seemed so young to her. And all that intensity, all those furtive glances and dark looks and hissed words over what was probably no more earth-shaking than the news that their favorite boy-band had just broken up. A few words came drifting back to her. "...Negaverse...." "...Tuxedo Mask..." "...Maxfield Stanton..."  
  
Strange stuff. Maybe it WAS a boy-band. They had some pretty funny names these days.  
  
Then the red-haired girl with the country accent hunched her shoulders, her face crinkling up. In an instant the little blond with the impossible pigtails had an arm about her.  
  
Lita felt the familiar pain deep in her chest. What I wouldn't give for friends like that, she thought. Friends that will always be there when you are hurting or in trouble. Friends that you cared about in return. Friends you could walk with, see a movie with, or just stay up late with to talk about the things that really mattered.  
  
She closed her half-finished bento, stood, and went back into the school.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Lita admired the jacket in the store window. It was black leather, supple and thin enough for even this weather. The design was simple, classic and clean, without all sorts of extra snaps and buckles.  
  
I could afford it, the girl thought. I've redone the tatami in the bedroom already and I bought that great little window heater towards next winter. I'm ahead on bills and my Money Market investments are doing well, anyway.  
  
But what would I do with a leather jacket? She smiled. The day was bright and cheerful. She'd followed the giggling clusters of fellow students downhill away from the school and to the shops that clustered around the Metro station.  
  
There was a nice little grocery here. That could be handy, although she liked the outdoor market near her apartment. A Zojoirushi department store filled a corner. Next door was a trendy record store with a five-for-one CD sale. And at the center of the block was the place she'd hear about; the Crown Arcade, two stories of shops and video game rooms and ice cream parlors.  
  
Ice cream might be nice. A couple games on the new Sailor V machine would be better. Okay, Lita thought. Her feet were already taking her towards the arcade. How about both?  
  
She walked right past the alley. The two young toughs had to hurry out after her. One coughed lightly to get her attention.  
  
"Oh, you two," Lita said as she turned.  
  
"I'm Kosuke," said the small, wiry boy. "This is Sanpai." He indicated the stout boy with the round face. The gesture was oddly respectful.  
  
Lita smiled again. She hadn't gotten their names the first time they had met. It had been a good fight, though.  
  
It had been when she was still at her old school. She'd found these two picking on a first-year student, trying to take his lunch money. "Mind if I interrupt?" She had said.  
  
They did. They let the boy escape, though. Then they walked around her until they were between her and the entrance to the empty classroom. "You owe us double taxes," the big one said. "One for yourself, and one for that kid."  
  
"Taxes?" Lita said brightly. She made no effort to get to the door, nor even to turn her head to follow the boy circling behind her.  
  
"Your lunch money!" His voice slipped on that and it didn't come out in the threatening growl he obviously intended. Lita saw him cast a quick look for help towards the smaller boy. The girl wasn't following the script, not at all -- and she didn't seem the least bit frightened of them, either.  
  
"I bring my own lunch," Lita said. She was enjoying this.  
  
"You must get money from your parents!" the boy said, almost pleadingly.  
  
"Nope." Lita shrugged. It didn't hurt, now, to think about her parents. Not that she would ever, ever get on an airplane now. But she had been living on her own for over two years now, alone except for the few visits by the trust fund executor.  
  
"Then you don't have any money on you," the boy said. He seemed almost relieved. He WAS big, Lita judged. He might have been held back a grade, but even more than tall, he was large. Stocky would be the word. He must weigh twice what that kid they'd been terrorizing earlier weighed.  
  
"Sure I do," Lita said. She wasn't about to bail them out here. "I'm carrying a little over two hundred thousand yen. I'm going to be looking at kitchen tools this afternoon after school," she explained.  
  
"Ko-kun," the big boy said. "Can't we leave now?"  
  
The small, dark-haired boy shook his head slowly. "You have to go through with it, San-san," he said. "It won't work if they are allowed to laugh at you."  
  
That was when the fight started. Lita stepped right in. Fight them, don't fight them, it was all the same to her. But she did have a fondness for a good fight and this looked to be a doozy.  
  
She went after the big one first. He was slow, and so late at throwing a punch she was able to step inside and wallop him one first. To her disappointment that was enough. He slid down the wall holding his face, a look on his face as if he was trying not to cry.  
  
Lita was slow picking up the smaller boy and that was almost a big mistake. The kid with the black hair and dark eyes had a wiry strength in that small body. Lita was driven away from "San-san" in a brief but furious exchange of blows.  
  
She grinned then, wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand, then went after the kid with punches so fast they whistled. He slipped them, weaving like a mongoose, blocking as if he had psychic powers to see where to move next.  
  
One punch got through and almost knocked him flat. He rabbit-punched her in the knee and Lita went down herself. Then she waded in again, swinging roundhouse swings in a gleeful abandon. It was almost a minute before she realized he was speaking to her.  
  
"You win," he was saying. He was backing away, still bobbing and weaving, arms drifting with effortless beauty to re-direct her wild fists away from him. "You win."  
  
"Huh?" Lita dropped her fists there. She hardly took notice that she was leaving herself wide open.  
  
"You," the boy straightened up, "have great power, but you have no skill to moderate it. If we continue like this one of us will be seriously hurt."  
  
He helped his friend to his feet then. Both straightened the black tunics of their school uniforms and tried to comb hair into order with their hands. The smaller boy had stopped at the door and turned around. "We will not bother the students of this school again," he had said. Then they had left her alone in the empty classroom.  
  
"I go to Juuban now," Lita told the two boys now. "Their students are off-limits too."  
  
"We don't do that anymore," Kosuke, the small dark-haired boy, said. "We've moved into Communications."  
  
"Huh," Lita said. "You're bosozoku now?" That is what the teen motorcycle gangs were called. Sometimes they were just a friendly, if a little rowdy, kind of motorcycle club, but mostly they were gangs; trouble-makers, petty criminals and wanna-be yakuza. The Japanese Mafia recruited heavily from the bosozoku, and used them as runners.  
  
"Actually, we're more like chimpira," Kosuke said.  
  
Lita blushed. Chimpira were wanna-be bosozoku, young punks not cool enough to own a bike of their own. The name, thought, literally meant "little ***."  
  
Oddly enough, Sanpai, the big one, blushed too. Lita looked at his round face and thought once again that he really did not have the meanness you needed to be a young tough, much less a yakuza.  
  
"So what are you doing around here?" Lita asked.  
  
"Keeping an eye out on things. We're working for, uh, someone." Sanpai spoke this time. "There's some strange stuff happening around here."  
  
"Huh," said Lita again. No UFO's were landing in the parking lot, and she didn't see Godzilla either. She shrugged. "Well, then," she said. And she left.  
  
  
  
  
  
Sanpai's eyes were bright with admiration as he watched the tall girl walk away. "Makoto," he said.  
  
"You said it," his friend and protector answered. "Come on -- our duty is clear."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The new Sailor V game was tough all right. Lita had to go back twice for more tokens. She hammered at the buttons, tossing magic and kicks at the ever-growing line-up of monsters. She made the first power-up easily, then the second, but the third took her almost twenty minutes.  
  
As she stepped back from the game she realized she had collected an audience. "She made the high score list!" someone said. "That's nothing," someone else said. "She's third down! I think she even beat Joe."  
  
Sure enough, "JOE" was blinking on the list right below her proud "LITA." She glanced up at the top of the list, at a score so high it added a full digit over any other. "AMY," the display said.  
  
She glanced at the other games, then headed across the mall to get her ice cream. When Lita came back inside there was a group clustered around the big UFO-catcher game near the counter.  
  
A young man with baseball cap turned backwards was working the machine like an expert, slipping the claw past the low-value prizes and dropping charm bracelets, large candies, phone cards and other goodies into the hopper.  
  
"Who's that?" Lita asked a kid near her. She licked her ice cream again, almost getting her nose in it.  
  
"Joe. They call him 'Game Machine' because he's such a wizard."  
  
"Huh," Lita said. She watched some more, still working on her ice cream. "He IS good."  
  
At the sound of her voice Joe looked up. Their eyes met through the plexiglas sides of the machine. He smiled lightly. "The girl who got that high score on the Sailor V game." He gave her a nod of respect in turn.  
  
Someone moved, then, and Lita was able to come right to the side of the UFO catcher. She watched Joe slip in another token. This time the crane swung towards the most difficult spot of all, the one furthest from the hopper. Tucked right against the plexiglas was a plush Sailor V doll in full costume; the orange and white sailor-suit with the signature red and blue bows.  
  
Lita licked her ice cream again, watching Joe's face as he carefully lowered the claw. His eyes looked up and met hers, briefly. Then his attention was back on the claw.  
  
It just barely grazed the Sailor V doll, not even quite over her. Joe concentrated harder, tapping the buttons with the lightest of caresses.  
  
The claw swung ever so slightly, then began to lift. The closing jaws caught in the hem of the pleated skirt, pulled at it...then slipped. The crowd started to sigh -- then Joe frowned and something happened. Lita watched, ice cream forgotten as the doll seemed to rise up of its own volition. Just a centimeter, but it was enough. The claws closed gently on the doll and carried her away.  
  
Lita finished her ice cream with a gulp. For some reason she was blushing furiously.   
  
He reminds me so much of Ken, she thought. That same hair, those same eyes. That same gentle look he has, inviting you to trust and share. She missed Ken. But more than that, she missed having someone to share those silences with. She really wasn't the kind of girl who can be alone, not all the time anyway.   
  
She must have been lost in thought, because when she looked up again Joe was gone. Without thinking about it Lita went outside after him.  
  
Night had came already. A nearly full moon was low on the horizon. It wasn't exactly cold, but the warmth of the season wasn't lingering into the night, not here.   
  
Joe was already down the street. Lita followed. She wasn't sure why she was following him. She'd like to talk to him. She'd like a chance to be his friend. But she was too shy to just yell at him across the street, or even run up to him. It was just too forward. So instead she followed, discreetly, still wondering why she was doing it.  
  
He crossed under the expressway then cut down along the little canal that ran under it. Lita followed into the darkness, feeling the cool of the water. Small boats bobbed in the current, and a line tinkled like a prayer bell.  
  
When he came up from the canal it was to cut through a deserted lot. There were a lot less lights on this side of the expressway. The red steel lace work of the Tokyo Tower brooded, slick in the moonlight. Lita wondered if he was going to head all the way to Tokyo Bay. Did he live in the flatlands, she wondered? Was there a family there, and did he have to work to support them? He was only a little older than she was.  
  
Something was happening ahead.  
  
Lita picked up the pace. "What do you want with me?" Joe's voice, raised now.  
  
"It's not you I want," said another voice. Female, this one. A harsh voice, a sneering voice. "It's what you carry."  
  
"Take them, take them all. I was just going to give them away anyhow. But you can't have the Sailor V doll."  
  
"Silly boy," the woman said. Then Joe screamed in pain.  
  
Lita started running.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Joe was kneeling on the ground. A strange woman was waving something at him, something that glowed.  
  
"Leave him alone!" Lita yelled. She was still twenty meters away.  
  
The woman barely glanced in her direction. The black crystal in her hands glowed brighter. The boy screamed hoarsely. Then, as Lita watched in sick horror, a hole opened in his chest. A small red crystal floated out.  
  
Lita reached the woman -- and handed her a good one right on the snoot!  
  
The woman staggered. One hand went up to her nose. It came back red with blood. "It's not...it can't...how could a HUMAN do this to me!"  
  
That was when the guy in the jacket and tie blindsided Lita, knocking her off her feet and behind a high concrete abutment.  
  
Energy slashed into the night just over their heads. The woman was screaming in pure frustration and rage. "How dare you lay hands on a Begaverse Geberal! You are deab, girl, deab! You hear me?"  
  
"I think you broke her nose," Kosuke whispered. He was breathing hard.  
  
"You're my kind of hero," Sanpai slid in after him. The space behind the abutment was getting crowded. "And who the hell are you?" he looked at the man with the tie.  
  
"Detective-Inspector Kenjiro Yamamura. And you are?"  
  
"Just leaving," the two chimpira said hurriedly. There was a flurry of rose-petal energy, then momentary quiet outside.  
  
"No, you aren't," Yamamura said. "You stay put, kids." He jumped across the abutment and was gone.  
  
"No," Lita said, scrambling to her feet. "No! I have to see about Joe!"  
  
She was just in time to watch the transformation. Light grew in strange patterns like the runway lighting at a hip fashion show gone badly awry. Circles expanded, rays reaching into the evening sky, shivering light brightening the drab industrial buildings like a nest of flashbulbs. The light reached up, hit the boy, then fell away with a thunderclap of expanding dust.  
  
"Game Machine" Joe was gone. In his place stood a boxy metal giant that reminded Lita irresistibly of the "Rock'em Sock'em Robots" game.   
  
He saw the three young people. Panels sprung open on his body. Kosuke barely managed to yank the other two down beside him before two crude iron missiles crunched into the concrete. "SEGA!" the robot roared.  
  
Lita rolled one way, the chimpira rolled the other. Distantly, she was aware her face was cut and bloody from the flying debris. Two more projectiles shot out, then two more. Lita covered her face and kept rolling.  
  
Kosuke shouted something. SEGA turned towards him, letting fly with the last of his missiles. It gave Lita enough time to get back to her feet.  
  
SEGA shot out a left. Lita saw it at the last instant and was able to twist clear. The right caught her in the act of throwing up a block; it shoved her arm back at her before the metal fingers closed on her wrist. In another moment Lita was dangling from the robot's fist.  
  
Lita could see a new determination in Sanpai's eyes as the stocky young chimpira left his hiding place and charged SEGA. She saw him swing a chunk of pipe at the robot's back. Then it hurled Lita aside.  
  
She felt something pop in her wrist as he did. She struck a roll-up door near its top before sliding down into the street. The breath was knocked out of her. Still, she levered herself up with her good arm. "No!" she gasped. "Don't hurt him!"  
  
Kosuke and Sanpai drew back. SEGA swiveled, then moved towards Lita again. She pulled herself slowly to her feet.  
  
"I don't want to fight you!" Lita yelled. "But I will if I have to!"  
  
SEGA struck out. The metal fist hit a stand-pipe, severing it out ground level. Water geysered out over the both of them.  
  
"Joe! Joe! If there is anything of you in there, stop this now!" Lita shouted.  
  
The robot was now just an arm's length away. It looked at Lita with unblinking yellow eyes. Lita could see electrical sparks dancing inside the metal shell. The water dripped steadily from the broken pipe. She wondered how much the water had damaged it.  
  
A minute passed. Then the robot swiveled about and began to walk away. Lita fell to her knees.  
  
She wondered if it had simply calculated the damage it had suffered, and decided it was not logical to continue the fight. Or if there truly was still something of Joe's soul in that metal shell, and in that last moment it was unable to bring more hurt to her.  
  
SEGA had just reached the edge of shadow at the next street corner when a dazzling red light came out of the darkness.  
  
"Yamamura?" Lita whispered.  
  
The light touched the robot. An actinic fireball bloomed, blinding her for a moment. When she could see again, SEGA was gone. There was nothing left but glowing debris.  
  
Lita was sobbing softly, still kneeling, as Sanpai came up. He draped a leather jacket over her shoulders. She shivered and clutched it closer around her soaking-wet clothes. Kosuke touched her good hand, then placed a strange red crystal in her palm. "To remember him," he said softly.  
  
Then they were gone, and the girl was alone in the cold night.  
  
  
  
  
  
NEXT: The Godfather wants a word with Lita. Yamamura has questions about his new partner. And then there's that spooky genius in the wheelchair... Be there to find out if "The Truth is Out There." 


	15. The Truth is Out There

Scribbler's note: I won't make excuses for how long it has been, except as follows...this took a whole bunch of research. The hat worn by a Buddhist monk, the correct rank for Yamamura, etc., etc. For all of that there is a lot of faking as well. I've never been to Asakusa, for instance, so I described the Gion district instead.  
  
As the story matures and becomes more serious more and more of my own understanding of modern Japan is reflected. The larger world is beginning to react, and the nature of the story is changing in response.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
INT: MOTOR POOL  
  
A large underground room, walls hewn from bedrock. There is little light. A glistening in the blue backlight, a drip from the ceiling, hints that this motor pool might be under water...perhaps buried under Tokyo Bay. The camera dollies smoothly under the curving roof of the access ramp, letting the ranks of vehicles reveal themselves from the sides of the frame.  
  
They are ranked like soldiers, geometrically neat. Sophisticated-looking tracked vehicles, armored wheeled vehicles, shrouded shapes on the turrets and hulls that might be missile launchers, cannon, giant lasers. The camera tracks down the row. Tank after tank, armored car after armored car. All silent and waiting.  
  
  
INT: CONTROL ROOM  
  
The room is two-tiered, an upper walkway and a pit of banked stations around a large plot board. The wall is covered with screens, dark now. There is little dust here.  
  
The camera tracks through, slowly, passing through the plot board before passing silent banks of control stations. Dust covers are on all the monitors; even the headsets by each chair hang neatly coiled in dust-proof bags. Stations pass like soldiers lined up for inspection. Labels are glimpsed briefly. Here are telephone and radio links to the police agencies, to the Self Defense Forces, to airborne radar, to Satellite Control, to the Ministries.  
  
All is silent and dark, save for one station. There, at this one by the bomb-proof doors, LEDs blink in rapid code. This station monitors a super-computer, no doubt somewhere below in a triple-filtered hermitage of its own. The lights blink through a pattern, repeating endlessly. A pattern that seems somehow searching. One senses that the computer is looking for something, waiting for that combination that means the lights must come on again, the men arrive and take their stations, the room come to life as the nerve center of a complex and deadly operation.  
  
The indicator lights continue to flicker. The room waits.  
  
Cue the titles.  
  
  
  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS  
  
Episode Fifteen : The Truth is Out There  
  
  
  
  
  
  
International Studies Institute, Minatoku Ward, Tokyo. 8:30 A.M.  
  
  
  
"You must be the investigators they were sending today." The slight, spectacled teacher opened the door to them.  
  
"Yamamura. This is Agent Taki." They both produced ID badges. Both were dressed identically in dark suits with white shirts. But then, so were most of the salarymen on the Tokyo streets this morning. "May we come in?"  
  
"Shocking, just shocking," the teacher was shaking his head as he led them inside. "Professor Sven Johanson was such a friendly, outgoing man. He hadn't been here very long -- it wasn't supposed to be a long visit -- and of course he didn't speak the language, but we are all going to miss him."  
  
"Let me assure you that the Japanese government takes the disappearance of a foreign national on Japanese soil very seriously," Yamamura said. "Now, Professor Johanson was here as a guest lecturer as part of a cultural exchange with Norway, is that correct?"  
  
"Yes indeed. This series was developed to expand the horizons of our Junior High students. You understand, of course, how narrow the perspective of our educational system is, especially in the earlier grades. Too much focus on the coming exams, too little focus on our place in the world today."  
  
Yamamura nodded briefly. Then --it was as smooth as if they had rehearsed it-- he and the other investigator turned towards the teacher. "This series," Yamamura said. "It wouldn't have included Juuban Junior High, would it have?"  
  
"I would need to check my records, of course, but I am certain that school would have been included. There are a number of high-potential students in their roster and all attempt was made to create an outreach opportunity."  
  
It was the older investigator who spoke again, taking the lead. "Did the Professor have any unusual interests or hobbies?"  
  
The teacher blinked. "That's an odd question," he said. "I was expecting you'd ask if he had any enemies we knew of, if he had been in any kind of trouble, if he had illegal tastes or habits. But of course the other police asked all those sorts of questions already. And there weren't any. There wasn't anyone who might want to hurt him."  
  
The teacher turned away, sat at a nearby desk. The small front office was all but filled with cultural knick-knack's; every bit of shelve space, every flat spot held a sculpture or model or mask or musical instrument.  
  
The teacher spoke again, so off-handed he seemed surprised to find speech coming from his mouth. "He was of course a nut about Norse Mythology. Everything from comic books to the Elder Edda. Give him a chance and he would talk for hours about the myths and philosophy. About Sliepner and Freya and the one-eyed god. About how Balder was killed by mistletoe and how the world was formed from Ymir's left eyebrow."  
  
Again Yamamura nodded. He seemed to have expected this. "He was a big man?" he asked then.  
  
"Oh, yes. Of course, all foreigners seem so big. But he was tall and energetic and moved like a young man."  
  
"He wasn't eight feet tall, though," Yamamura said. "Or blue."  
  
"Why would you say a thing like that? Of course not. Are you trying to make a joke? Because I don't find it very funny."  
  
"Neither do I," Yamamura said. "Neither do I."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Cafe Ohayo, Azabu Juuban, Tokyo. 9:00 A.M.  
  
  
Lita went down the street for breakfast. She ignored the "Morning Service," the three-hundred yen egg, coffee and slice of toast favored by most of the dark-suited salarymen filling the coffee shop; she wanted a big breakfast and damn the cost.  
  
She also didn't care that a junior high student eating breakfast out was not a common sight, especially not at a coffee shop. She plunked herself down in a seat, ordered firmly, and ate with gusto.   
  
What had happened last night was still too fresh to have perspective on. Normally Lita didn't dwell on things. She had a healthy ability to put trouble behind her and focus on what was happening now. But this was different. And not just because she had gotten emotionally involved.  
  
First off -- Lita couldn't help the grin that came to her then -- she had made an enemy. This Negaverse person wanted her dead. And Lita looked forward to meeting her again. Meeting her in battle and avenging Joe.  
  
Her thoughts slipped away from her there. He had been so warm, so gentle. They had shared a moment there, at the arcade. A moment of understanding. Now he was gone. Terribly gone...changed before her eyes, then destroyed without mercy.  
  
She sniffled, loudly. She didn't care who noticed.  
  
In her pocket was the red crystal Kosuke had placed in her hand. The red crystal that was somehow summoned from Joe just before his terrible transformation. She took it out, then, in the bland friendliness of the crowded little cafe, and placed it by her blue-bordered plate and the large glass of orange juice. It glittered subtly, not as ostentatious as a ruby, not as simply as glass. It wasn't a stone she knew. It wasn't, she was sure, a stone anyone knew.  
  
So who was this Yamamura and what did he know? He called himself a Police Inspector. And he sure looked like a cop. But he knew what a Negaverse General was. And he had known what was about to happen to Joe. Had he been the one to kill him? Out there in the dark with some strange weapon of his own?  
  
And what about the two chimpira? There was something mysterious about them...some sort of kohai/sempai thing, with the smaller one always showing deference to the bigger one. But then there was the way the big guy -- Sanpai -- always seemed to be looking towards Kosuke for help on what to do and how to act. As if he was the student and Kosuke was the master.  
  
And Kosuke was a pretty tough fighter. She could probably stand to learn some tricks from him.  
  
It was a little strange how they had managed to show up right in the middle of things. Perhaps they had been following her. It would be interesting to know why. On the other hand, she had been following Joe without too much reason.   
  
This was an unusual situation for Lita. She took a long drink of orange juice and half-closed her eyes. She'd never had to go out looking for trouble before. Usually it would find her. Stumble on a couple of bullies, or a girl sleepwalking across a busy intersection, and action was instinctive. Now she actually had to think things out.  
  
Lita put down the empty glass, reached for a handful of packets and began spreading toast with a liberal coating of jam. There was only one thing to do, then. And one place to go.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Minatoku Main Branch Public Library, 10:00 A.M.  
  
  
It was an older building; a solid, neo-classical little lump, dwarfed by the financial institutions' office towers around it. Stone lions, faux-patina bronze grill, fussy little details around the entry-way and outside windows.  
  
The inside was all plastered notices and flyers and stack numbers and explanations. Computers were crowded into every free corner. The floor was very clean.  
  
Lita found the very structured nature of the information system working against her. It was easy to find out where to go to read up on automobile repair or small business law. The books needed for every conceivable college major were listed in full. Special collections that went with this or that educational television program were marked with red, blue and yellow dots. But research on something unique...that was a little more difficult.  
  
At last she came from one fussy and far too "helpful" information desk with a small pile of stack numbers on little slips of paper. Most of those were in reference collections to boot, and would need even more effort to retrieve.  
  
"Ano..."  
  
Lita hadn't heard the wheelchair coming. She turned. Her attention was captured by the girl's face, her dark serious eyes below hair so black it had blue highlights. Her legs were thin and oddly lumpy below the blanket.  
  
The girl blushed briefly, then shook away her embarrassment and spoke. "They won't be able to help you here," she said.  
  
"Ah," Lita said.  
  
"May I?" The girl indicated the fistful of paper slips. Lita handed them down to her. The girl was very pretty. And haunted. Her eyes were dark with lack of sleep. Her arms were slim and lightly muscled, but her legs rested feebly within the wheelchair, as if they were no longer a part of her.  
  
"Negative space." The girl looked at the first slip. "That's in Art and Music. It's a term from the visual arts, meaning the necessary void, the area against which the rest of the image is seen." She looked at the next. "Negative reinforcement; psychology this time. It's the concept of making negative stimuli go away by doing the right thing; like taking aspirin to stop a headache."  
  
She flipped through the rest of the slips. "Negative exponents. A way to write very small numbers. Negatron..." at this one she looked up. A quirky little grin came. "That's very good," she said. "It's a variant name for the electron. Only really useful when both electrons and positrons are involved in a particle-physics experiment."  
  
"Thanks," Lita said dryly.  
  
"They haven't heard of the Negaverse. Not under that name, at least." The girl turned her chair and began moving towards a quiet, less crowded part of the library.   
  
Lita waited until they had that privacy. "But you have?" she said.  
  
"I have. I have been looking, checking. I wanted to know if somehow something had slipped by us. By science, I mean." The girl sighed; actually, it was more like a shaky exhalation of breath. Lita sensed then that she had come to question everything she thought she knew, the very basis of her understanding of the world.  
  
"The historical record is very clear. In 992 AD the Fujiwara clan ruled Japan and Lady Murasaki was a child learning her hirigana. The Byzantine Empire, the Seljuk Turks, the Capatian Kings of France...all left detailed records. There is no mention of an invasion from another dimension, or of a Silver Imperium."  
  
The girl shook her head. "The astronomical data is even more convincing. There has not been liquid water on the moon for millions of years. It has never been possible, not since the formation of the solar system, for a human to live and breath on the surface of the moon. Ranger, and the later missions, have radar-mapped ninety-five percent of the surface to include any feature over ten meters in size. There are no ruins of palaces and gardens there. There can not have been a Moon Kingdom."  
  
Science wasn't Lita's strong suit. She shrugged.   
  
"So either I am losing my mind, or there is something involved here that can change reality itself. Because I KNOW there was a Silver Imperium, and they fought the Negaverse last time it appeared!"  
  
"They turn people into monsters," Lita said. "They are after something, some treasure?"  
  
"They are after energy. When they get enough, the dimensional barriers will open and the armies will be here. They mean to make us all their slaves."  
  
"Good luck," Lita snorted.  
  
"Yes," the girl said seriously. "You are one of the ones who will give them trouble. You, others I have known." She shivered. "And you will fall. Like we have fallen. The Negaverse will win in the end."  
  
"Not on my watch," Lita said. She liked the sound of that, and repeated it. "Not on my watch."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Ebisu, Tokyo, 9:00 P.M.  
  
  
It was the kind of place that didn't need a name. You saw the red lantern, the noren hung so low you had to stoop to see the door and the warm glow from the tiny wood-latticed windows, and you knew it for one of those miniature neighborhood places that stayed open until late serving drinks and yakitori and offering a friendly warm place to talk, drink and smoke after a long day at work.  
  
A table of salarymen were doing just that as Yamamura and Shin Taki entered. Faces were already red and the cigarette smoke hung like a storm cloud. They had progressed past bantering insults and the inevitable letting-the-hair-down to a camaraderie of foolish jokes and smutty stories.  
  
"Have a drink with me," Yamamura had said. Shin had agreed. So he still didn't know if Shin was acting as a good subordinate and doing what his boss said, or if he wasn't under Yamamura's orders at all and was just playing along.  
  
Now they drank, in a strained politeness quite unlike the four men and their shift supervisor at the other table.  
  
"I want to know what happened that other night," Yamamura said at last.  
  
"That Negaverse witch transformed him. It looks like she is collecting some kind of crystals from human hosts."  
  
"Not that," Yamamura said impatiently. "Did you shoot him?"  
  
"Yes, I did." Shin answered without hesitation, as if he had only been waiting for Yamamura to ask him directly.  
  
"With what?" Yamamura pressed for more information.  
  
"Something special from Department Six. A prototype."  
  
"Then they know, then this isn't the first..." Yamamura stopped. Tried to get control of himself. "Shin, I need to know more about what is going on here. I don't like being in the dark. I can't work at my best when I am kept in the dark."  
  
"Why," Shin countered, "What is it you want to know?"  
  
"Everything. All that's been hidden from me. Okay, one thing; who do you work for, Taki?"  
  
"Department Six, same as you," Shin answered.  
  
"Are you assigned to me?"  
  
"I'm on this case," Shin said. It wasn't much of an answer. It wasn't even a good attempt at evading the question. Once again, it was obvious he just didn't care. That who ever he was in the organization, Yamamura's opinion of him meant little or nothing.  
  
"Look, Shin," Yamamura tried a different tack. "I don't want you just shooting them. We're supposed to be cops. We don't just gun down suspects. We investigate, we arrest."  
  
"You are still a cop." Shin was grinning, and it wasn't a nice grin. "Oi!" He motioned to the man behind the counter. "Another skewer of lamb!" Then he leaned forward onto his forearms. "That's your problem," he said seriously. "You still think like a cop. You need to start looking at the bigger picture."  
  
Yamamura looked back at him. Coldly. "That isn't how things are done," he said.  
  
"Isn't it?" Shin waved the bamboo skewer negligently. "Isn't it, now?"  
  
  
  
  
  
Senso-ji, Asakusa, 8:30 A.M.  
  
  
Lita dressed in a nice green blouse and a pair of hip-hugging slacks she had found on sale last Wednesday. She had her house keys, ID, and cash; nothing more. She wasn't going to study, or take pictures, or do anything but enjoy the festival.  
  
She rode the Ginza line to Asakusa. The low, modernistic station had three exits and she followed the bulk of the people heading towards the middle one. Through the breezeway and she came to the magnificent Kaminarimon Gate. Raijin, the God of Thunder, glared from the left. Fujin, with the bag of the world's winds on his shoulders, was to the right.   
  
The gate marked the south end of Nakamise-dori, the street that was more the point of a visit then the reproduction temple at its end. The style was blatantly "shitamachi," old Edo. Some of the buildings might have been the original wood, but many of the historic ones had not survived the war. Nor had the district, really; Shinjuku was the nightspot of Tokyo now.   
  
But on this weekend, the street came alive for Sanja Matsuri, one of the biggest festivals in Tokyo.  
  
Lita plunged right into the shops and souvenir stands and eateries. In moments she had piping-hot mochi in her hands, and the light powdering of chocolate was everywhere. The bandage wrapped around her wrist and forearm was really getting in her way. Still, it didn't stop her from buying a gift for her landlord, and a bag big enough for that and the next purchases as well.  
  
The crowds were showing up. Families, a few younger children in brightly colored kimono, others in masks from favorite TV shows. Young people out on dates, shirts decorated with random English slogans, hair dyed anywhere from a mild russet to wild greens and blues. There were older couples, some old enough to wear kimono as well. Some people were already staking out spots for the passing of the mikoshi; folding chairs, umbrellas, tripods and of course plenty of cameras were made ready.  
  
It was getting warm enough for shaved ice and green tea flavoring as the men in their happi coats began streaming towards the temple. Lita did that and as she ate she watched a street performer in white rice-powder make-up do the alternately humorous and creepy art of Budoh. Across the Nakamise-dori from him two monks stood silently with bowls out, faces hidden under their bamboo hats.  
  
A little more gift-shopping and Lita decided she was getting properly hungry. She found a soba shop where she could kneel on a soft cushion right out front and eat and sip tea as the parade began. The chimpira would find her when it was time.   
  
The first mikoshi appeared outside the Denpo-in temple. The crowd cheered. People craned their necks to see. Musicians clapped wooden blocks, pounded drums, and piped on high piercing flutes to the rhythmic shout of the shrine-bearers. The young men beamed and sweated under the five hundred pound portable shrine, bobbing and weaving through the packed crowd and doing their best to entertain the god inside.  
  
Then the next appeared. For a moment they seemed about to jostle for position like they did at the rowdy "Quarrel Festival" of Hyogo. Great shouts of laugher came instead, the mikoshi circled each other in a ponderous dance, then the parade continued. The crowds were so thick now it was almost impossible for a person to cross the Nakamise-dori. Indeed, so many people were crammed into the noodle shop with Lita that warm breath was on her cheek on one side and an elbow was pressed into her ribs on the other side each time its owner lifted his camera.  
  
Lita didn't mind in the least. It was part of the joy of a festival, this jam-packed humanity, this feeling of having one body, one skin.  
  
Old Edo was out in force now. The decorated shrines, the streamers and paper lanterns, the bright kimonos. Men in full samurai regalia no longer looked so strange and out of place. In the heat, and the effort of carrying the portable shrines and shouting the chants, many men had stripped to the waist. Some had stripped as far as the fundoshi loincloth, and on those men the garish yakuza tattoos were quite obvious.  
  
Lita understood she had been meant to see this. The yakuza liked to see themselves as modern-day Robin Hoods, as protectors of the people, as holders of an honorable samurai heritage. Reality was sadly shy of that image. But at a festival, at least, they could show how they supported traditional events and "gave back" to their community. So their presence was strong here, and open.  
  
Yakuza could sometimes be such sentimental traditionalists. It certainly explained why the oyabun had asked her to come here for a meeting.  
  
  
  
  
  
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices, Shinjuku, 11:00 P.M.  
  
  
Yamamura was not having a delightful day. Shinjuku boasted Tokyo's greatest concentration of skyscrapers, a mass of hundred-meter glass towers like the future metropolis out of some anime. The centerpiece of the massive Metropolitan Government Offices block was a triplet of towers of staggered height, an edifice from the then-young Kenzo Tange that visitors described as having Orwellian overtones, or being a left-over set-piece from Fritz Lange's "Metropolis."  
  
They also, Yamamura thought sourly, had an awful lot of corridor. He was having very little luck finding out anything about Department Six, and not just because this was a Saturday.  
  
The trouble started with the name, he reflected. On his paystubs it now said "detached duty," but to what level of the bureaucratic labyrinth was he attached? The Metropolitan Police of Tokyo, a semi-autonomous organization falling directly under the National Police Agency, echoed that umbrella organization in its multitude of Bureaus. Some of those Bureaus had in addition Divisions. There were also Districts to consider; under these fell such things as the neighborhood Kobans.  
  
There wasn't a "Department" in sight. Yamamura had a working theory, though. It wasn't a comforting one. The National Police Agency had a Security Bureau as part of its internal structure. The Security Bureau had a certain reputation for "Black ops" and a mandate to formulate and execute responses to civil unrest and other national emergencies. Yamamura figured an invasion from another dimension qualified.  
  
On the other hand, the Criminal Investigation Bureau had fingers in many pies, and approached those problems with a bewildering variety of Departments. Either way, though, Yamamura was no longer directly under the Metropolitan Police. Unless, of course, he was completely mistaken in all his guess-work, and "Department Six" was merely a dodge to get around budget over-runs, and he was in reality working for a small police station in some outlying ward of the city.  
  
He hadn't gotten straight answers yet at the Metropolitan Government Offices. Japanese were by nature inclined to talk around things, and politicians had raised this indirection to a high art. Ask a Diet-man if it was raining out, and he could do upwards of twenty minutes in a steady monotone drone, like the chanting of a monk on the last day of a fast, without even admitting the existence of precipitation.  
  
Yamamura leaned against a wall, lifted first one weary foot and then the other. Then he stomped on towards the next in a never-ending series of doors.  
  
"I want to know about Department Six," he said. Indirection be damned.  
  
"Department Six? Of what city agency, sir?"  
  
"Can the 'Sir,' I'm a working cop. The Department Six that I'm assigned to. The one they would send a Police Inspector to, the one that issues laser guns to their men."  
  
"I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about," the functionary said in good humor. He sat back, steepled his fingers. "Do you want tea? You look worn out."  
  
Yamamura bit back what he was about to say. He took the tea instead. And thanked the man. And when he was comfortably settled in a chair with a steaming cup in his hands he tried going after it from another direction.  
  
"Look, when I was assigned to Department Six I was told I had special authority to request assistance. From any police department, and from any other agency under the Public Safety Commission umbrella. I was led to believe I could have a coast guard cutter at the drop of a hat, or a battalion of Riot Police for that matter."  
  
The functionary nodded politely, waiting for him to continue.  
  
"So what I want to know, is, how do they know I am authorized if no-one even knows who Department Six is? I mean; how am I supposed to get this assistance I was promised?"  
  
The functionary sighed, opened a drawer and smoothly pulled out a form. "And what sort of assistance do you need?" he asked, pen poised.  
  
"I don't...that was a theoretical question, dammit."  
  
"Ah." The functionary moved as smoothly as before and the form retreated back to wherever it had come from.  
  
"Now, just wait a minute. I said I might need something and you made all the motions of getting it for me. Yet you claim you have never heard of Department Six!"  
  
"Inspector, let us be reasonable." The functionary began to speak, smoothly taking the offensive. "Have you ever had trouble getting the support you need to do your job?"  
  
"Well, not in so many words..."  
  
"And your pay is proper and sufficient? The health and retirement plans to your liking?"  
  
"Yes, yes, yes. I just...I just want to know who I am working for. I want to know what it is I am supposed to be doing!"  
  
"You are on detached duty from the Metropolitan Police, Inspector Yamamura. And as for what your duties should be, well, I suggest you contact your supervisor." This last was said without rancor. The man was polite, even friendly, but he wasn't going to volunteer anything at all.  
  
Yamamura thanked him for the tea and stood up. "I don't suppose you've ever read Franz Kafka," he said at the door.  
  
"Yes," the functionary said. He smiled. "I find 'The Castle' singularly appropriate."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Moto-Azabu Koban, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 4:00 P.M.  
  
  
Yamamura was visiting the koban where his old friend worked. Two other patrolmen were assigned there, but both were walking their rounds as the two sat and ate take-out noodles.   
  
"It bothers you, eh?"  
  
"I don't like not knowing what I am supposed to do," Yamamura repeated. He hardly heard the words he said. He wasn't listening to them. Because, in truth, that was only part of the story. What he was afraid of was making mistakes. Already he had let a girl be hurt, injured so badly she might be permanently maimed. He didn't trust his own judgment and instincts. All this was too strange for him. He wanted there to be some great organization with formulated policies and written methods and training videos.  
  
And yet, the truth of it might be worse. There was something out there, some organization that had sent Shin Taki to join him in dealing with this "Negaverse" thing. Shin had arrived with gun in hand and started shooting down the suspects. Was that truly the policy of this nebulous "Department Six?" If Yamamura ever found them, were those the kinds of orders he would be asked to follow?  
  
They had invaded the Hikawa Shrine as well. Led the police there in force. Yamamura had got the word in time to observe but not to interfere as they closed the place down. And after all the effort he had gone to build a relationship of trust with the Shrine Priestess. Who was missing, now. The shrine and its guardians had been scapegoated, Yamamura was sure. Someone put pressure on for a fast solution to all the strange happenings in the neighborhood, and the Hikawa Shrine was handed to them on a plate.  
  
Yamamura was an old-fashioned guy. He cried at all the Tora-san movies. And it bothered him that a place so important to the community could be sacrificed just to gain a few political points.  
  
Plus it hadn't done anything to slow the Negaverse.   
  
Yamamura could still see the hard face of that Negaverse General, Zoicite. Hear her laugher, as shrill and unmusical as...as a telephone?  
  
His friend picked it up. "It's for you," the older policeman said bemusedly.  
  
The voice was thin as a whisper. "Aqua City, nine tonight. Don't let anyone see you."  
  
  
  
  
Asakusa, Tokyo, 7:45 P.M.  
  
  
It was romantically dark in this old shitamachi neighborhood in the north-east part of Tokyo. Winding cobblestone streets, wooden fencing, paper lanterns making small warm patches of revealed dark woods and lush overhanging greenery. People in their good clothing, a few of the women in kimono and one in the white make-up of a geisha, their voices a soft laughter.  
  
In this limited vision one could believe the narrow alley might open up again only to show old Edo in all its glory, samurai and lords striding the streets. Or you might come back to the main streets to find you were mysteriously on the other side of Tokyo from where you started, or all the way down in Kyoto, four hours away by high-speed train.  
  
The chimpira had come to her after the parade of the mikoshi, and told her when and where. Now she frowned just slightly, reviewing the complicated directions any address in Tokyo required.  
  
And here it was. The wooden sign was very small. Most of the light came from the garden behind the front gate, and that gate was as worn and rustic as the gate to a Shinto Shrine. There was no menu outside. Lita, who was more used to eating at the kinds of places that had plastic replicas of all the food outside, merely shrugged. The yakuza would be picking up the tab.  
  
She went in. She didn't have a coat and the rest of what she wore didn't suggest the need for a search. The place was as classy inside as the outside had suggested. A very well-kept little garden that showed flashes of genius in the seemingly random clusters of mossy stones and twinning of low plants. A well-polished entryway with a few simple hangings and a loose bowl or two that probably deserved a museum. Yakuza were, as a rule, rude, blue-collar types more likely to be found at a strip club than at a geisha party. It was nice to see this one had a little class.  
  
Lita was expected. She was led by a comely attendant at least a head shorter than she was. As she followed down the short corridor she heard the distinctive pling plang of the samisen. Geisha party indeed. Then  
a screen was whisked aside and she was invited to step up into a room. The attendant vanished with her shoes -- it was certain they would return cleaned, polished, probably re-soled if they needed it, too.  
  
A broad-shouldered man of about fifty was there in a dark kimono. Around the low table with him were six other men in suits that ranged in class from herringbone tweed to the pinstripe of an unconstructed yakuza. The older generation of yakuza had learned how to dress from James Cagney movies. Even now they favored the garish colors and patterns of a used car salesman...and at that, they were the largest Japanese consumer of big American cars.  
  
It was obvious who was the oyabun. The word meant "father," and referred to the organization favored by the more traditional yakuza, in which certain subordinates were called "brothers" and others "children." His name was Shimizu. It had been in the papers often enough. Not only was the gang he ran the one operating in Lita's home neighborhood, but it was also the biggest gang outside the syndicates. Shimizu had formed strong agreements with other gangs in and around Tokyo, and in time might be able to challenge even the massive syndicates. Which, as far as the papers were concerned, meant another round of bloody gang warfare was coming.  
  
Shimizu came up on his knees and bowed lightly. Lita knelt to return the bow, with her hands in her lap. Then she sat quietly, watching them, with no impatience for someone to make the first move.  
  
Shimizu regarded her steadily, even as he had his sake cup refilled and drank it down in a single swallow. Tea was brought for Lita, and sake offered her as well.  
  
Some five minutes after she had entered the room the oyabun spoke. "There is something happening in my neighborhood," he said. Lita didn't disagree. "You are involved." He gestured briefly, to one side then the other. Four younger men got up, moved behind Lita, smoothly took her arms in hard grips.  
  
Lita tensed once, confirmed she was firmly held, then relaxed. "You are to be no longer involved," the oyabun directed.  
  
Lita spoke then. "Sorry," she said brightly. She smiled.  
  
"Sorry?" the broad-shouldered yakuza boss echoed.  
  
Lita tried to shrug. That didn't work, not with her arms held. She settled for another smile instead. "I'm involved in this thing and I'm going to stay involved," she said. "I finish what I start."  
  
There was a low growl from one of the men. "I could have you killed," the oyabun said.   
  
"It happens, it happens," Lita said. "Tell you what, though...if you do, better make sure of it. I hold grudges."  
  
"Makoto," the oyabun breathed. "The boy was right."  
  
"Makoto?" This time it was Lita's turn to echo.   
  
The oyabun made an impatient gesture and his men released her. One returned the tea cup to her hand before he retreated. "Out." The oyabun said briefly. The men all lined up to bow, then exited through the small sliding door. It took a while. When they were alone the oyabun relaxed his straight-backed stance. "You sure you don't want any sake?" he said.  
  
"On second thought, I think I will," Lita said. She held out a fresh cup as he poured for her. But she sipped, not gulped.  
  
"Makoto. The sincerity of purpose. That total commitment to action of some of the old heroes. You have it. I didn't believe...I was testing you."  
  
Lita merely nodded. She had no expectations when she went into this den of yakuza, therefor, nothing that happened could surprise her.  
  
"Lita Kino, you are a hero. A champion," the oyabun said. "There is something evil happening in Azabu-juuban, all right. People have been hurt. Things have been seen in the shadows."  
  
He leaned forward, elbow on the low table. "Miss Kino, there are strange men in Azabu-Juuban. You've met one of them. There are government agencies involved. It is starting to look like a private war is going on in my backyard, and I don't like it."  
  
"Are you concerned for the people there, or are you just sore 'cause no-body bothered to talk to you about it?"  
  
The oyabun laughed suddenly. He filled his own sake, drained that cup as well. "Honest to a fault," he said. "Take it at face value, then." He grew more serious. "I know I can't give you orders. I won't insult the both of us by trying. But you are of the neighborhood. You are one of us. I trust you where I don't trust these black-suited government geeks."  
  
Lita smiled. She was touched by the trust. But she shook her head briefly. "What do you think I am, Shimizu-sama? Some sort of samurai?"  
  
"Yes," the yakuza boss said. Then, even more strangely, he came to his knees again and bowed low, palms flat. "You ARE samurai in ways we yakuza can only struggle to achieve. Defend my villagers, Miss Kino. I will give you any aid you request."  
  
The interview was over. As she left the oyabun told her one thing more. "Those two boys are my eyes and ears. If you need anything of the yakuza, tell them and it will be done."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Aqua City, Tokyo Bay, 9:00 P.M.  
  
  
A world of concrete and steel. Low, flat, saving the simplified geometric shapes like the Fuji TV building with that odd sphere suspended between the two glass bricks, or the inverted pyramids of Tokyo Big Sight. It was an image from the future of Tokyo Bay, as the mindless automaton of development covered the bay in concrete and raised oddly identical, soulless buildings upon the flat surface that resulted. Yamamura thought he understood, now, the protesters during the last expansion of the Narita airport.  
  
A light wind blew off the bay and the air was moist. The lights of Tokyo barely pushed through the haze. At least the Rainbow Bridge was at a good angle. It wasn't much of a rainbow, though.  
  
Yamamura went towards the water, towards the lights of Shingawa. He fancied he could see the glitter of the Ginza, further inland, even from here.  
  
Out by the water was a familiar shape. A scaled-down reproduction of that Statue of Liberty that had been given by the French to the Americans for their own island in the bay. The statue was alone and ignored in this small, windy bay-side park. That seemed symbolic of something in itself.   
  
By instinct, Yamamura headed in that direction. He saw the flare of a cigarette being lit before he saw the man himself.  
  
"Inspector," the man said quietly as he neared. He was silent, then, as he tended to his cigarette. When he had it going to his satisfaction he took a deep drag. Let it out slowly, savoring it. "You've been asking questions," he said at last. "People are becoming concerned."  
  
"Then answer them," Yamamura said easily. He couldn't help the chill that suddenly crept under his coat, though. The man had spoken in such a matter-of-fact way, it somehow made it real to Yamamura what a dangerous world he had entered the day he transferred.  
  
"I can't tell you everything," the man said with a slight impatience. "In time you will understand why." He puffed on his cigarette some more. "I will tell you what you need to know."  
  
"Department Six..." Yamamura started. Stopped. Thought it through once more, briefly, then gave the question that was really at the heart of the matter. "What is it that I am supposed to be doing?"  
  
The man seemed to smile. It was difficult to tell, here in the dark and the sea-fog. He paused, working out the best way to say what he wanted to say.  
  
"Think of us as the Department of Mommy," he said at last.  
  
"Eh?" Yamamura didn't understand.  
  
"Well, who do you call when you have monsters under the bed?"  
  
"So Department Six deals with things that go bump in the night. I kind of figured that out already."  
  
"Well, not exactly," the man said. "Not in so many words. Mommy doesn't lead an assault under the bed with gun and flashlight. She turns on the night light, and she assures the kid there's no such thing as monsters. Most of the time, she's right."  
  
"And the rest of the time? Look, I'm glad you came out here to try to answer my questions, and I understand you may be taking on some risk in doing so. But please understand that I am still a cop. And it says right there in the police charter that we are to investigate and if needed act against anything that endangers the public."  
  
"An insignificant fraction of the public, Inspector. Look," the man said briskly, "We have a national economy to worry about, a rising trend in youth crime, a national dissatisfaction with modern life. We don't need people worrying about monsters as well. The number of people who run afoul of, shall we say, supernatural events is vanishingly small. There is no need to burden the general public with the problem."  
  
"It seems...disingenuous." Yamamura wasn't exactly objecting. He was familiar enough with the "father knows best" attitude of the bureaucracy.  
  
"There is another, better, reason," the man said. "The disease carries its own specific. Monsters (for lack of a better word) seem to call into being anti-monsters to control them. Bonzes and other under-employed mystics, would-be heroes, and so forth. Often as not that are excellently equipped to deal with the monsters on their home ground. Your average Senior Patrolman could only blunder about, uninformed and completely out of his league."  
  
Yamamura didn't reply immediately. He looked out through the fog, watching the lights break up into smaller and smaller patches of soft color. His hands gripped the night-chilled railing, tightly. At last he spoke. "So we assist these people, then? These monster-fighting antibodies?"  
  
"It happens that a field agent will become personally involved. We generally leave that agent in place, as we have found then when that circumstance arrives that agent can often be effective in that role. The Department would prefer a more hands-off approach, however. The general intent is to liase, to provide assistance otherwise difficult for a private individual to apprehend, and to smooth the way with other agencies. In fact, I'd rate the latter as about the most important. It tends to work a lot better for everybody if the regular police are dissuaded from taking an interest."  
  
"A fancy way of saying we sweep things under the rug."  
  
"I prefer to think of it as keeping the national consciousness untroubled by certain nightmares," the man said dryly.   
  
Yamamura studied the water some more. "So what happens if there's something too big to handle in-house?"  
  
The man put out his cigarette in a few brisk movements, buttoned his coat back up. "I believe there is a draft policy," he said.  
  
"Draft?" Yamamura turned from the rail.  
  
"It has not been necessary to formulate a detailed policy. Such a thing has never happened." The man was already walking away. As his last words faded, so did he into the darkness and fog.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Azabu Juuban, 9:30 P.M.  
  
Molly had snuck out of the house again. She had found, with practice, that she could get by on less sleep than her mother thought she needed. If Serena had known where she was going she would have been concerned, too, but it really wasn't any of her business.  
  
She had a warm coat. She had clothes that didn't look quite so much like a school uniform. And she still had that false I.D. She only needed money for the cover charge, and maybe something sweet and non-alcoholic. And maybe the club owner would be there again, at his private table. At the tiki lounge; at Max's.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Next --  
  
The slow flowering of hope comes to Azabu-juuban, as Amy begins the long road to recovery, as a wandering monk works to bring a sundered family back together, and as Lita tackles the Negaverse problem head-on. But flowers are not the only things blooming in a Garden of Evil. Be there "when squirrels attack!" ...and I'll show you! 


	16. Green Magic

Picture a rose. A single rose, in full rosy bloom. Now picture a   
bulldozer. Make it a big one...an American D-7 at least.  
  
The bulldozer and the rose, that's all you need. You don't need to see   
the unctuous developers with their shiny suits and gold watches. You   
don't need to see the golden koi in the pond, or the daisies sparkling   
on the inviting green grass.  
  
Focus on the rose and the bulldozer. That's the story, right there.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS  
  
Episode Sixteen : Green Magic  
.  
.  
.  
The two of them were talking again, heads close together, both seated on   
a stone bench out by the Earth-lit reflective pool. For a single catty   
moment Amy wondered what they had to talk about: this barbarian Prince   
from Earth and the sheltered child Princess of the Moon Kingdom.  
  
The moment passed quickly. Amy felt a wave of tender fondness for her   
young friend. The Moon Princess was such a dear. So pure, so trusting,   
a child so ready to explore the exciting great world about her. How   
terrible it was that her childhood should have to come in such a time as   
this.  
  
The Prince had no sword. The palace guard did not trust him that far,   
not yet. But Queen Serenity understood the fastnesses of the heart in a   
way few others could. She saw the connection between the serious,   
black-haired young prince and her own golden-haired daughter, and she   
would let no-one stand between them.  
  
The Prince didn't yet know he was in love. But he would. Amy knew that   
with a womanly awareness that was new to her.  
  
She had arrived at the silver gardens and white palaces of the Moon   
Kingdom as a child, as companion to the little princess who would be   
heir to all of this. They had been close friends, close as only girls   
growing up together could be. Later, other companions had arrived. But   
Amy had been the first. She treasured that.  
  
Little girls grow. New interests appear. Amy watched, fondly, as her   
friend sat so near Prince Endymion of Earth, and wished, nay, waited,   
for that day when romance came to her life as well.  
  
***  
  
A ping. What was that? Amy opened her eyes. She tried to lift her   
head. Fell back. She felt so terribly weak.  
  
It all filtered in; the chill, the thin sheet above her, the faint   
noises of medical equipment, the smells of sickness and disinfectant.   
She was in the hospital. Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr. His sword, that lonely   
rooftop. Crashing pain and blackness.  
  
Amy lifted her head again. She was everywhere bandages, splints, tubes,   
wires. Like some kind of Borg. Someone sleeping in a chair nearby.   
Her mother.  
  
It was so still in the room. Middle of the night maybe. Shadows of   
equipment, light only from the nurse's station. She was in the ICU.   
Hooked up to EKG, blood O2, IV's. Medical machines she didn't recognize   
crowded around her. A big one at the foot of her bed that looked   
complicated and very expensive.  
  
The very expensive machine went "ping" again. Amy, oddly comforted, let   
her eyes close.  
  
***  
  
The doors flew open to let the Negaverse General in. The young   
princesses were huddled in the center of the shattered playroom,   
clutching at each other in their terror. It was General Malachite, the   
most senior of Queen Beryl's army. He had been pointed out to the   
girls, earlier, from the battlements. Now he was here, tall and   
terrible and filling this last sanctuary with his menace.  
  
His uniform was splashed with blood and a new scar cut his cheek. His   
eyes glared crimson. Yet, there was still a nobility to his features.   
He was of an honorable lineage -- assuming there were such things within   
the kingdoms of the Negaverse.  
  
In one glance General Malachite took in the bodies of the Negaverse   
shock troops who had been first into this room. The girls had defended   
themselves well.  
  
It was Princess Venus who rallied them again. "Venus Crescent Beam!"   
she cried. "Jupiter Lightning Crash!" another of the young Princesses   
shouted. "Mercury Bubbles!" Amy cried, adding her own power to the   
others.  
  
Malachite sneered, his handsome face turned instantly ugly. His hands,   
oddly clean still in white gloves, lifted to stop their attacks dead.   
  
"Keep pouring it on!" Princess Jupiter shouted. Amy didn't have the   
strength for this. None of them did. This was no practice session to   
be ended when they were winded, but a solid powerful effort at the peak   
of their ability. Each of the Princesses faded in turn, the girl   
falling sobbing to her knees as her powers expended and left her.  
  
The Negaverse General said nothing. For a moment it seemed he might   
salute this valiant but futile effort. Then his hands moved again and   
the wasted power of their attacks was gathered up, clarified, amplified,   
then sent back at them in a single crackling ball of energy.  
  
The energy struck. Amy died knowing she had failed her Moon Princess   
once again.  
  
***  
  
"Code Blue! Code Blue!" The voice came over the speakers. Amy drifted   
up from drugged sleep to see bright lights in one corner of the ICU,   
pitiless white lights aimed down at a thrashing figure surrounded by   
trauma personnel. Terror held her by the throat. She was in one moment   
both in her chilly bed, pinned by that white light as surgeons thrust   
quick hands into her body and red blood gushed, and trapped on that   
rooftop again as the giant raised his massive sword.  
  
Amy tried to gasp. Her breath was caught and there was a ringing in her   
ears. She thought she might be flailing, reaching out or trying to   
block. The panic raced over her in a dark wave and submerged her and   
rolled her over and over into blackness.  
  
***  
  
All the Princesses were there. Not all of life in the Moon Kingdom was   
masked balls and earth-lit walks. Now it was sewing, the embroidery   
that was one of the skills a young lady was expected to have.  
  
The Moon Princess was terrible at embroidery. She was too easily   
distracted. Yet even now Amy could see flashes of the maturity yet to   
come; moments where she did concentrate, when her fingers flew and her   
needle was sure. Amy had been with the Moon Princess longer than any   
other in their little sewing circle, and what she saw, she was sure only   
her mother the Queen could see as well -- within this tiny, giggling   
blond was the spirit and the serenity to one day rule.   
  
Other girls were there as well, comfortable and joking and gossiping   
with the rest. One was daughter of the Captain of the Guards. Two   
others were junior chambermaids. It was hard to see past that ease and   
friendliness to see the awareness that was always there of class, and   
the wariness that rested somewhere behind their easy laughs. It wasn't   
something most nobles thought about. But Amy had wondered, sometimes,   
if there wasn't a better way for people to live together, then to have   
the few served and obeyed by the many.  
  
Vision blurred. Perhaps this was another day. The other girls had   
gone. The Princesses sat closer, a private game that others were not   
invited in. It had something to do with the Moon Princess's heritage;   
there was a memory of some argument, of the other Princesses feeling   
left out, of a dim awareness filtered down from the adults that times   
were changing and danger had come to the peaceful kingdom.  
  
Amy looked down at her lap. She saw the white and aqua and baby blue,   
the pretty bow and the pleats that her needle secured with neat, tight   
stitches. She was making her uniform.  
  
***  
  
She awoke again and her mother was there.  
  
"Amy?"  
  
"I..." Amy swallowed. It had been so long since she had spoken.   
Strange dreams and visions, as twisted and incomplete as the ones that   
Greg suffered, chased after her from the drugged haze. "Oh, Mom! I was   
so....scared!"  
  
The word wasn't adequate. Nothing could measure the icy despair she had   
felt on that lonely rooftop as the great sword had smashed her from the   
sky and hurled her broken body across the roof. And as she had waited,   
helpless, knowing she was going to be hurt again, then die.  
  
"I came as soon as I heard. They didn't let me in while they were   
operating." The words were coming a little too fast, and Hanae Mizuno   
made a visible effort to stop herself. She smiled weakly and gripped   
Amy's hand even harder.   
  
"I felt you," Amy said. "I knew you were there nearby." Her mother   
looked so much older now. Her eyes had dark rings. I hurt her a lot,   
Amy thought. She shouldn't have to see me like this.  
  
"Amy, what happened?"  
  
"I..." Amy started to say. She couldn't. Couldn't find the words,   
couldn't stand to bring the memories so close. She could feel the icy   
draft of that rooftop on her skin again. Taste the burnt-metal taste of   
pain and blood. She was breathing faster and faster, throat closing,   
chest tight.  
  
"It's all right, Amy. It's all right. I'm here," her mother said   
urgently. She reached through tape and IV lines to give Amy a clumsy   
hug.   
  
It had been a long time since they had hugged. We let ourselves drift   
so far apart, Amy thought. I was so self-sufficient, I let her let   
herself be driven away. Now, whatever else happens, we have a chance to   
rebuild a closeness between us.  
  
And with that Amy was at last able to let go. She relaxed into her   
mother's arms as if she were a small child again, leaving behind worry   
and pain in the comfort of a mother's love.  
  
***  
  
The blade struck. Amy felt what happened in every obscene detail.   
First the skin split, exploded outwards from the wound in a shock wave   
of outraged flesh. Then, the contact with the flexible strut of the   
tibia. It tried to bend with the impact but the inertia of bone and   
flesh was too great. The sturdy little bone snapped in green-stick   
fracture, splitting up half of its length. The great blade moved   
inward, contacting her other leg even as both tibia and fibula split   
apart, fragments sent like bullets through the flesh about them. The   
solid column of the femur was stressed next. Too much matter, too much   
inertia again. It tried to flex along the protected paths of the joints   
but could not move quickly enough. With a snap that propagated a shock-  
wave of its own the great bone snapped across, followed shortly by its   
brother. Already hydrostatic shock was racing up through her body,   
blood pressure cresting in this last instant before the ruined flesh   
parted and let the pressure out in a spray of life-fluid.  
  
***  
  
She had almost coded on the table. From shock, and from bleeding out.   
The broken bones themselves had released almost two liters of blood into   
the tissues. And that wasn't counting the soft-tissue damage, or   
vascular laceration. Two units of whole blood had kept her from   
crashing and a whole lot more saline had been run in through large 16-  
gauge cannulas in both arms before she was properly stabilized.  
  
Upstairs the wounds had been extended and explored, with the devitalized   
tissue excised. They had performed reduction and fixation on the worst   
of the fractures, wiring the fragments of her left patella and pinning   
both femurs to external "Wagner" frames. Intramedullary rodding of the   
tibial shaft fractures was done with stainless steel nails. The wounds   
had been left open under soft dressing with copious drainage and she was   
shifted back to the ICU.  
  
It was really a sophisticated form of naming the demons, Amy thought   
wryly, like assigning gods to the thunder and the rain and giving them   
faces and personalities. She had a little knowledge. She had asked a   
bunch of questions. Did it make it easier, knowing exactly what had   
happened and exactly how badly she was hurt?  
  
She might walk again. If she did her physical therapy properly and   
promptly, that is, and if there was no permanent nerve damage.  
  
Like it mattered.  
  
Amy lay back on the cool white sheets. She had failed. She was   
crippled, helpless, and their only slim chance to stop the Negaverse had   
already been squandered. Not even Sailor Mercury could make a   
difference now, and Mercury was trapped behind the Magic Fire   
Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr had cursed her with.   
  
It was only weeks, now, before Beryl descended on Earth with all her   
troops. And then it would be an end to all hopes, all dreams.  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
  
"There's a girl whom no one sees, there's a girl who's left alone.   
There's a heart that beats in silence for the life she's never known..."  
  
The Secret Garden  
,  
,  
,  
Picture Raye Hino, once Shrine Maiden at an old and respected Shinto   
Shrine in the heart of Tokyo. Her face is smudged, her eyes ringed with   
dark. Her clothes don't fit her very well and aren't very clean,   
either. She has a bare handful of yen, one hoarded 500-yen piece and   
perhaps 200 in smaller coins. One more "morning service" and an order   
of curry rice from the machine and she will be broke.  
  
She isn't sure where she will sleep tonight. She is running out of   
hiding places and she isn't long on trust right now. Not enough money   
for a sleep capsule out by the airport or a cheap hotel or even the   
sometimes-bargain a "Love Hotel" can be in the off-hours. Going near   
one of those places, looking young and female and desperate, is not on   
her list of smart things to do anyhow.  
  
No home, no job, no family, the cops probably looking for her...her   
options are running out fast.  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
Molly was at her table again. Maxfield Stanton knew she was there.   
Molly knew that once he would have spoken to her; would have told her   
she needed to go home and would have ordered a cab for her. But he   
didn't speak now. He pretended to ignore her. But he knew she was   
there, all right. Knew and was oddly afraid to speak to her or catch   
her eye.  
  
Molly knew she was in danger. She was in deep water; physically, and   
emotionally. She was playing with forces she hardly understood. She   
wished Serena would stop her and pull her aside and talk to her. For   
all her flightiness, Serena had a solid instinct for what was true and   
right.  
  
Maxfield was troubled. He was worried at one moment, elated at another.   
Something was going to happen within weeks and he seemed in two minds   
about how he felt about it.  
  
Molly was in two minds herself. She was frightened, more frightened   
then she thought was possible. And she was drawn to him, too, with an   
attraction she could not fight.  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
He wailed, but softly. His kind were natural skulkers, and he had no   
desire to bring an entire town down upon himself. This woods was too   
small. It wasn't the great wild tracts his kind preferred. It was more   
like a tiny copse. The strange lights of this great steel village   
stabbed deep within the branches and left little comforting shadow.  
  
He wasn't entirely sure who he was. In one mystic arrow strike some of   
the essence that had driven him was destroyed, and something within had   
moved into the void. In his breast was the ache of hunger and fear and   
desire, but also things his kind had never felt...or at least had never   
admitted they felt; loneliness and a need for family, and a need to be   
something more than a rough beast.  
  
Below in the night on the streets of Tokyo, a tall monk stood still and   
lifted the tattered bamboo hat from his face. "Hmmm," he made a   
thoughtful sound to himself. "Hrmm."  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
It was two weeks after she had gotten out of the hospital and Amy was   
invisible. She found that amusing. It was a cold amusement that could   
too easily become bitter, but it was amusement. She turned her chair   
around and backed up the curb before the doleful song of the crosswalk   
sign ended.  
  
She had once been left out because of her intelligence and her bookish   
habits. Now she was ignored because of the chair. Amy wasn't walking   
yet, and wasn't sure she ever would. It hardly mattered anyhow. And   
the chair was comfortable. In it she was invisible. She was anonymous,   
unmarked; eyes slid away from her. People did not like being reminded   
of the fragility of flesh and of their own mortality.  
  
She was out of school. One more dream had been cast aside. That loss   
had a special bitter flavor all its own, but it was really just one more   
thing she had accepted she could not have.  
  
Amy had a new understanding now. Through her dreams, through the hours   
she had lain awake in her hospital bed trying to put off the moment when   
she had to shift position again and adjust all the tubes and wires and   
sheets once more, she had come to a new understanding of her core self.  
  
Amy was a lonely girl. She was shy, and had difficulty reaching out,   
but there was space left open in her heart. Without her friends she was   
incomplete; only part of a person. She could live with what she was   
now, even reach out to touch the bittersweet of it, but she was less of   
the person she could be -- that she wanted to be.  
  
Yet it was as much a kindness to Serena as it was self-protection that   
she stayed away. Serena was still the laughing child. She did not need   
to be weighed down by Amy's full and bitter understanding of their doom.  
  
She rolled across another crosswalk. At least her arms were getting   
exercise. She wasn't doing her therapy. She knew the harm that was   
doing to her; every day her limbs stiffened more, and the chance she   
would ever leave the chair shrunk further. It only bothered her   
distantly. It bothered her mother more, and Amy could not explain, nor   
stand to see her pain.  
  
On the other side, she found the sidewalk was blocked by construction.   
She'd have to go another block before she could cross the expressway.   
Amy caught her wheels in her gloved hands and continued.  
  
Amy understood something else, too. Her methods of mind had failed her   
on that rooftop. But they were still her best tool. It was a part of   
her that she would never lose; this desire to understand, to come to   
grips with, to name the demons and take their power from them.  
  
She had gone to the Azabu Library. She was returning from there now.   
Amy thought of the tall girl she had just met. Amy had known instantly   
she was seeing another champion. Another fighter like Raye, or like she   
had been herself.  
  
"Why didn't I tell her everything?" Amy murmured to herself. Because   
she didn't want to get dragged back into that hopeless fight. The tall   
girl had hope, though. She was going to keep fighting. So what kind of   
loser did that make Amy?  
  
She reached the crosswalk. The traffic was growing. She wheeled across   
quickly, worrying all the while. This wasn't a wheelchair-friendly   
city. She was a bit further North-east than she meant to be, and it   
looked like the street was curving further East. She continued under   
the expressway anyhow, hoping she could work her way out of Higashi-  
Azabu before her arms gave out entirely.  
  
It was quieter on this side of the expressway. The usual shapes of   
embassies, the Daiichi Hotel and the Azabu Towers in front of her, the   
Tokyo Tower further on in the same direction. She wasn't on a main   
street and there was little traffic.  
  
She was moving along a wooden fence that looked in need of repair. On   
the other side were trees. On impulse Amy turned further East and let   
the street carry her past more fence, a greenhouse, a stone wall with an   
iron gate.  
  
Amy wheeled up to the gate. She had found a garden.  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
"Clusters of crocus, purple and gold. Blankets of pansies, up from the   
cold. Lilies and iris, safe from the chill. Safe in my garden,   
snowdrops so still."  
  
The Secret Garden  
,  
,  
,  
It was called "The English Garden." Just to make sure everyone got it,   
the sign was posted in romaji; in that cute little 26-letter alphabet   
the English-speakers used. It was a nice sign, subdued colors and a   
busily serif'd black-letter font. It hung on a wrought-iron gate that   
brought back twin memories of Mejii Restoration buildings and the   
romantic mysterious Europe.  
  
It had been part of the estate of a feudal lord during the Togugawa   
regime. Ieyasu's innovation in security had been to "invite" the   
families of his daimyos to spend part of the year in Edo. Many of them   
had built lavish second houses on the outskirts of town.  
  
This lord had not fared well. The Shogun had him executed and his   
estate confiscated. The garden languished until 1868, when the restored   
Meiji Emperor had it turned into a public park and directed that it be   
rebuilt in the style of the great English gardens.  
  
Over the years, however, funding dried up. There was now a single   
gardener, a man old enough that he should have retired decades ago, who   
hung on and did what he could to keep the place running.  
  
Tokyo had continued to grow. Boundaries expanding constantly, building   
over Tokyo Bay, extending inland, spreading over the Kanto plain and   
eating smaller cities as it held onto its place as one of the world's   
greatest conurbations. The economy spiraled upwards with no end in   
sight, fortunes were made overnight, investors marched four abreast. It   
wasn't possible to lose money, especially in prime Tokyo real estate.  
  
The title to lands under the garden, taken so long ago by one Shogun and   
granted anew by an Emperor, was questioned. Posses of lawyers turned   
over moldering scrolls in an attempt to find any irregularity that would   
allow the land to be developed anew. The government was only too happy   
to oblige. Only the immediate neighborhood stood up for their garden,   
and tried hard to make their voices heard.  
  
Now, at last, the deeds were being signed. A new office tower would   
rise from the earth and stomp more of Tokyo's precious green open space   
under feet of concrete and steel. One more delay to weather, one more   
appeal to be smothered, and the bulldozers would move.  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
"You just about can't kill a rose," Tadahiko said. The old man was   
clipping away as he spoke, bare hands flicking among the thorny stalks   
and canes of the tall English roses. "Water and light, that's all it   
really needs. And a little care here and there. Cut away the dead   
parts, open it up and thin it out so it can breathe."  
  
"I understand," Amy said. She liked to talk to him. She liked to   
watch. She had come here often during the past days.  
  
"Some say to cut them back in early winter. Some like to trim them with   
each bloom and keep the rose blooming through the spring. Give it   
plenty of light and water and a mild climate, though, and it will bloom   
season round. Roses are forgiving. Ow."  
  
He touched the spot of red blood on his hand. Wagged a finger at the   
bush.  
  
"Don't you wear gloves?" Amy asked.  
  
"Can't feel the life that way," the old gardener answered. "Need to   
feel the warmth under my fingers, know whether to cut or to save.   
Besides, the rose feels better if it can get in a lick or two in return.   
Likes to know it was in a fight."  
  
Amy laughed. The gardener laughed with her. It felt good.  
  
The warmth of the sun was on her. June was ending, summer coming in.   
Those still in school would be taking their vacation soon. Amy was up   
in the Rose Terrace with Tadahiko. To her left was the green sward of   
the Croquet Lawn (although croquet had not been played there in fifty   
years or more), and behind her was the Rose Walk that wound in gentle   
switch-backs down to street level at the North Gate.   
  
The roses were in full bloom. Up here in the terraces they were in   
alternating patterns of red and white and a deep amber. Out across the   
grass ginkgo spread shade with their pale green leaves. Further South   
stood the tall sentinels of Red Cedars -- Sugi -- a ancient breed of   
"fossil" tree and relative of the Giant Sequoia. The Sugi and Hinoki   
almost hid the 800-year old Camphor that stood solidly like a sturdy old   
man.  
  
Amy breathed in the scent of the roses. Sometimes subtle, sometimes   
strong, and each one different. It was a rare peace that she found   
here. It helped. It helped very much. It had been a week since a   
nightmare had yanked her from sleep. She could even look at the shine   
of silver on a cooking knife without a shudder.  
  
That evening, as her mother bathed her, Amy had an odd thought. She   
looked into her mother's round face, so much like her own. I am her   
daughter, her child, Amy thought, but I am also somehow of a kingdom far   
away and across some strange barrier of time. As Princess Mercury I was   
born to another; raised and loved by another woman. How can I reconcile   
having two pasts?  
  
It didn't lessen her love for, or her bond to, her mother now. But how   
would Hanae Mizuno take it? Would she feel threatened, even lessened,   
knowing her daughter was not hers alone?  
  
Yet she already shares me, Amy realized at that moment. With Ihara   
Mizuno. They write to each other. She tells him about me. It had been   
a passionate romance that burned so brightly it burned itself out. Now   
they were close friends: pursuing their careers in different places and   
in different worlds. As infrequently as I think about him, though, he   
is my father. Some of that love for poetry and writing is in me, too.   
  
"You just worked through something, didn't you?" her mother said gently.   
"Your face smoothed out a little there."  
  
Amy was able to smile, just a little, in return. "I don't mean to be   
keeping secrets from you," she said then. "I want to tell you   
everything. I can't, not just yet. But soon, I promise. Very soon. I   
don't want there to be any more secrets between us."  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
"When a thing is wick it has a way of knowing, when it's safe to grow   
again you see. When there's sun and water sweet enough to feed it, it   
will climb up through the earth a pale new green."  
  
The Secret Garden  
,  
,  
,  
Darien had been coming to The English Garden to rest and meditate   
between sessions of cram school. He was, oddly, getting used to having   
two lives. Or, as might be a better way of looking at it, being two   
people sharing one soul. It seemed to be a common problem these days.  
  
He and Tuxedo mask had a cordial relationship now. His effort in   
fighting off the geas that gripped them both had broken through somehow;   
Darien was aware now of what his alter-ego did. And Tuxedo Mask in   
return had gained a self-awareness that let him search, now, for answers   
to the riddle of his existence.  
  
Tux had a plan. It involved gathering the Rainbow Crystals, which he   
hoped would lead him to the Silver Imperium Crystal and the Moon   
Princess. Darien, remembering his haunting dreams of the Princess,   
approved of the scheme.  
  
It felt good to be in motion. To be actively working on his problems   
instead of moping about them. Whatever came of it, Darien was sure this   
was a change for the better.  
  
A flash of blond hair caught his eye. Serena was coming towards him   
along the winding path that led from the bridge to just past the gazebo.   
She hadn't realized he'd noticed her. She was trying to be casual,   
trying so hard to pretend she hadn't seen him yet and was going to be   
surprised.  
  
Darien waiting calmly. He found he liked watching her. She was a   
child, as coltish and awkward as they came, but she was so delightfully   
alive and full of such innocent happiness it made one smile just to see   
her.   
  
"Excuse me," she said as she stopped before him. It was surprisingly   
formal for her, and very polite. "Is this seat taken?"  
  
Darien didn't point out there were a dozen benches spaced around the   
Duck Pond, most of them at least as good as this one. Even a day   
earlier he might have said that. Or said something equally sarcastic.   
Or perhaps ignored her.  
  
Instead he shrugged, a sort of non-committal "go ahead and take it"   
shrug.  
  
Serena sat in that way of hers, like a spring wound up and set down on a   
counter and ready to bounce up again at a moment's notice. Then,   
slowly, she settled. She sighed, almost inaudibly. Relaxed into the   
bench as if finding a home there.   
  
She almost seemed to be humming, like a little dynamo of happiness. She   
WAS happy, Darien realized. Happy to be sitting near him. Such a   
simple thing. A little space begrudged by him, a little of his privacy   
given up. Such a simple thing to create such happiness in another   
person.  
  
He realized he'd misjudged Serena again. He had never even dreamed of   
the depths of emotion she could carry. Somehow her feelings, her needs   
now looked more real, more important. If there could be such a weight   
of emotion, then perhaps she knew better than he did the recesses of the   
human heart. Perhaps it was he that was being foolish and immature.  
  
He felt humbled by her in that moment. And he felt a growing sense that   
all his self-control and his plans and his posturing were going to be   
swept aside once again by some force outside of him. It was just a   
sense yet, just a tickle. But it was there.  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
Amy watched them from across the grass. Her friend Serena looked so   
peaceful and so happy. And Darien...Amy was sure the young man in the   
black hair had no idea how natural he looked beside Serena. He most   
certainly was not in love. But Amy wondered how long that would be   
true.  
  
My friend is growing up, Amy thought. I miss her. I wish I could share   
this time with her. Our growing-up time. Our first romances, our   
heart-aches. But there is so little time left.  
  
There was little time for the garden as well. Amy knew that now. She   
mourned that, and it wasn't a distant pain. For the first time since   
she had awoken in the hospital she found herself able to care again and   
to want to help.   
  
Bulldozers were already here. They didn't have the right to move even a   
meter, to cut even the exterior fence, but they had been brought in   
already. Amy was very suspicious. Tadahiko had been missing for days.   
A weekend was starting. It looked very much as if the developers meant   
to jump the gun and present the court with a fait accompli on Monday.  
  
The sun was already low. Shadows slanted half way across the Duck Pond,   
shading the daybloomers and lotus. In the beds the popcorn curls of   
Daylily and the firework clusters of Butterfly Milkweed caught and threw   
back the orange that had just started to touch the West. A few   
secretive purple blooms of Dahlia added accent, as did the cotton-ball   
puffs of Yarrow.   
  
The shadows were deep and slanting under the Red Cedar, Japanese Cypress   
and the still-green Maples. The little forest path that led to the   
statue of Peter Pan was dark and hidden.  
  
Someone was watching her. Waiting for Amy to notice her in return.  
  
It was the tall girl. She was amid the trees, dappled by their shade.   
She spoke from within them.  
  
"This place isn't safe today."  
  
Amy turned her chair fully. She was on the path, of course. As   
inviting as the green grass looked, she could not run barefoot through   
it. All she could do was mire her wheels.  
  
"What do you mean?" she called back in a low voice.  
  
The tall girl emerged from the woods. "Can't you feel it changing?"   
She asked. "The spirits of this place are awakening. And they are   
angry." One toss of her head was enough to point to the bulldozers.  
  
Amy bit her lip. The tall girl was right. She could feel it now when   
she looked at it. As unscientific as it might be, there was an   
intelligence here. The intelligence of green growing things, of ancient   
trees, of the secrets of wood and soil. An old and dangerous   
intelligence that men woke at their peril.  
  
She wasn't going to leave.  
  
"My name is Amy," she told the tall girl. "I'm staying. I'm staying to   
help. And come down here; there's some things I need to tell you."  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
"It's a maze, this garden, it's a maze of ways..."  
  
The Secret Garden  
,  
,  
,  
The sun was leaving and it was growing dark. Darien sat up, suddenly,   
realizing how late it had gotten. Serena, too, looked around and   
noticed the time.  
  
They were just turning towards each other, sharing a grin a   
embarrassment, when a chittering broke in.  
  
A squirrel was watching them. It wasn't quite like any squirrel Darien   
had ever seen before. It was large, as large as a small dog. The teeth   
were long and yellow.   
  
"Serena," Darien said quickly. "We need to get out of here. I'll take   
you home now."  
  
There was no need for Tuxedo Mask to appear, Darien thought. The evil   
that had been done here had been done days ago. There was nothing left   
for him to fight. The only important thing now was to get Serena home   
safely.  
  
He hardly noticed he had his arm around her as they walked back to the   
gate.  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
,  
They had sat for hours, Lita cross-legged in front of the girl she now   
knew as Amy. Amy had told her about the Negaverse, and the fight she   
and the other girls had led against it. They had discovered they had   
much to share. They were friends now. Somehow they were immediately   
close friends, and there was a lifetime of sharing they had to go   
through in a few hours.  
  
When the choking, ratchetting sound came from the parking lot Lita leapt   
to her feet. "The dozers!" she cried.  
  
Amy was right behind her. They got back to the parking lot as fast as   
they could. What they saw was a handful of construction men in yellow   
hard hats and a man in a suit giving them some unneeded advice in an   
annoying, superior-sounding voice.  
  
"This is illegal," Lita told them, hands planted on hips. "You should   
be more patient."  
  
"And who is this?" The developer turned enough to favor her with a   
baleful eye. "Keep your nose out of what you don't understand,   
sweetie."  
  
You'll be understanding my fists in a moment, Lita thought. She   
remained calm, but a small, dangerous smile was already on her lips.   
"You will have to wait for the final papers," she said. "No fair   
jumping the gun."  
  
"They can't do this!" Amy's voice was ragged. Lita wondered which tore   
at her friend worse; her love of the garden, or her fear for the men   
here should they disturb the thing that waited.  
  
Lita saw what she saw. She could see the way the trees were tossing in   
a wind that was hardly there, hear the creaking like voices from the   
woods, see the way even the ornamentals and the runners had contorted   
themselves in shapes of menace.  
  
The workmen were already uneasy. Lita thought it likely some of them   
also sensed what they sensed. It would be hard, she realized, to push   
dirt and wood around for a living and not get a sense for the moods of   
the earth.  
  
The young man from the developers was having none of it. He brushed   
imaginary pollen from his expensive suit and made a point of checking   
his gold watch. "Time is money, gentlemen," he said. "We aren't in the   
business of paying men who don't work."  
  
The driver of the first dozer sighed. Gave it a little gas, warming up   
the engine. It boomed and rattled and black crud came from the exhaust.  
  
Amy moved. Swiftly. Before anyone realized what she was doing she had   
parked her chair directly in front of the bulldozer.  
  
"That's it," the driver threw up his hands. He swung out of the cab,   
dropped to the ground, and took off his hard hat.  
  
"What are you? You some kind of tree-hugger?" The developer sneered.   
"Well, you don't get much sympathy from me. Go throw your crippled   
little body in the way of some-one else's building project and leave me   
alone."  
  
"What you are doing is wrong, and dangerous," Amy said urgently.  
  
Lita let the confrontation go on. This was Amy's right; to stick up for   
what she believed in. To place her own body in the path of danger, if   
need be. She admired her new friend. Amy had strength she didn't seem   
to be aware of. And her voice, so reasonable, so sure, was doing as   
much to turn the construction men from their task as was the presence of   
her chair in front of the lead dozer.  
  
"Look, we're sorry, Mr. Ehara," one of the workmen made himself   
spokesmen for the others. "We'd better come back Monday. By then it   
will all be settled and legal and all."  
  
"She'll move," the developer said confidently.  
  
"I don't think so," the workman said.  
  
"She'll move!" With that the developer pushed the startled man aside   
and swung himself into the cab of the bulldozer. The instrument lights   
shone upwards at his face, making his expression strange and unreadable.  
  
He gunned the engine. Amy didn't move. He reached for one of the two   
sticks, ground it against the gearbox, then found the clutch and tried   
again. Perhaps he had tried to raise the blade in a menacing way.   
Perhaps he meant to edge forwards a few centimeters.  
  
What happened instead is the full 11,000 Kg of the Komatsu D41, driven   
by a roaring 110 HP diesel, jumped at Amy like a startled lion.  
  
Lita was across the gravel, through the open door of the cab, and out   
the other door with the young developer under her so fast no-one,   
including him, had even seen her move.  
  
He fell back on the gravel, though, making no effort to defend himself.   
His hands were out -- but his face had an open sneer.  
  
The doors of the big black American car in the parking lot opened and   
four very large men got out.  
  
"Oh, goody," Lita said. She got to her feet, planted her sneakers wide   
on the gravel, and cocked her fists. "Come on -- bring it on!"  
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Amy was on her face on the grass.  
  
She had leapt, straight out, clearing the dozer blade by centimeters.   
It had slammed into her chair and sent it skittering across the grass.  
  
She smelled damp earth, the sap from broken grass. He breathing was   
loud in her ears. Behind her in the darkness Lita was fighting. The   
dozer engine still rumbled and burbled in idle. And the trees rustled   
in renewed anger.  
  
She was pressed against the grass. A blade hung in the growing shadows   
just centimeters from her eye. Amy could see the striations, the subtle   
folds, the tracery of circulation. There was so much complexity, so   
much purpose, in just that one blade. Within those folds and tissues   
were cells, frameworks of sturdy cellulose. The chloroplasts swimming   
like things alive, a glowing green as they scavenged sunlight.   
Chemicals transferred across membranes, proteins synthesized out of   
amino acids, link by chemical link in the seething vacuoles.   
  
The cycles of nitrogen and oxygen and carbon, the inhalation during day   
and exhalation during night. Creating substance from water and air;   
fixing carbon, nitrogen, splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen and   
storing energy in phosphate bonds.   
  
Growing. Not caring about the construction machines poised to tear the   
soil. Not caring even if there is a break across a blade, sap oozing,   
the plant dehydrating, no chance of recovery. The choroplasts and   
vacuoles and endoplastic reticulum still working, still in their endless   
dance.  
  
In the soil, more life, more creatures, a vast community, a catalog of   
worms and insects and bacteria and fungi. All growing and striving and   
fighting for life.  
  
Only humans, Amy thought, are stupid enough to give up. Only a human   
could accept that the battle was over and try to stop living.  
  
Her hands found the ground. The sigil of Mercury blazed suddenly on her   
forehead. She pressed. She gasped. Come hell or high water, she was   
going to move, and she was going to get back in the fight.  
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"Welcome to my nightmare," Yamamura said under his breath. He had   
almost been too late.  
  
The trees were whipping back and forth now. And they weren't the only   
thing in motion. A man screamed as dog-sized squirrels leapt at his   
face. Yamamura raced that way first. He ripped the creatures away,   
kicking one solidly as it fell. "Run for the gate!" Yamamura shouted.   
The man covered his bleeding head with his hands and staggered that way,   
still screaming.  
  
Some low somethings that rustled were attacking the idling bulldozer.   
Yamamura couldn't see well enough but he thought they were teabushes.   
Over by the parking lot Lita was fighting hard with some bodyguards. It   
looked like she was holding her own, at least for the moment.  
  
Yamamura ran across the grass. He yanked another man out of a strange   
embrace with a shockingly scarlet Turk's Head, and hoped the scarlet was   
the plant, not the man. The ginkgo's were getting active and he didn't   
think there was much time left.  
  
Amy was fighting grimly and silently with a spiderwort. At least she   
hadn't tangled with a rose, he thought. It had managed to capture one   
arm and one leg and Amy was energetically making sure it didn't get near   
her throat.  
  
The police inspector grabbed handfuls of sticky plant and hauled.   
Clumps of dirt came up with the roots but Amy was free.  
  
"We have to stop meeting like this," she said with a faint grin.   
Yamamura pulled her arm around his shoulders and they staggered back   
towards the parking lot.  
  
Suddenly Amy turned around. "Ehara! What's happened to Ehara?"  
  
They heard the splashing at the same moment. "Don't look," Yamamura   
told her. "I think the koi got him." He thought of the gasping, fleshy   
mouths and shuddered. "We need to get out of here," he said. "It's   
only a matter of time until the topiary show up."  
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Lita was having a very good fight. She wasn't exactly winning. But she   
was holding up okay. She had been fighting for a good five minutes   
before she realized just how mad she was. Normally she didn't have   
anger in a fight. But trying to run over Amy with a bulldozer...that   
had tipped her over the edge.  
  
She'd lost or thrown away the bandage. Something was wrong in her wrist   
now, but it still worked great for the roundhouse blows she loved. One   
of the bodyguards was down for good, but the other three were pressing   
her hard. Lita had just enough presence of mind to keep moving,   
shifting and stinging them, and make sure they never got a chance to get   
a good grip on her.  
  
She was bloody. They were bloody. She was breathing hard through her   
teeth and there was a haze around her vision. She got a good one in.   
Someone else got her in the back of the head.   
  
And then Amy was there, with the police detective in the suit, and she   
was shouting something. "Hey, you goons!" Amy was shouting. "Your boss   
is drowning in the Duck Pond!"  
  
They broke off. Someone grabbed Lita and held her back; it took a   
moment to realize it was her friend.  
  
Lita shook her head to clear it. The garden seemed to be seething now.   
Strange shapes moved in the gloom. "We got all the workmen out of it?"   
She asked.  
  
"We did," Amy nodded. "I think it's over."  
  
An line of red light slanted out of the darkness and a 200-year old   
ginkgo burst into flame.  
  
"Cripes!" Yamamura yelled. "Shin, no!"  
  
The man was a mere shadow framed against the lights of the city. He   
came into the garden, something with glowing bits on it in his hands.   
Another line of red light, another scream of flames. Amy was crying.  
  
"That's...that's the guy that killed Joe!" Lita seethed.  
  
"Shin, stop it!" Yamamura ordered. "There's no need!"  
  
"Protect the public!" the Department Six man yelled back. "Or have you   
forgotten that, Inspector?"  
  
"Is this the public we support?" Yamamura yelled. "People who break   
the law, who tear down a neighborhood's heart?"  
  
The red light shot again and again. Shin was walking deliberately into   
the screaming garden, fires blooming angry yellow on all sides of him.  
  
Lita saw the shape before anyone else did. It stood quietly in the edge   
of the seething woods, but it's eyes were fire.  
  
"A stag?" Lita breathed.  
  
"No!" Amy screamed. "It's Tadahiko!"  
  
It was an English Stag. A proud, antlered beast. It was so beautiful   
and brave that Lita's heart stopped for the sight of it.  
  
Shin shot. Fire bloomed along the stag's flank.  
  
It charged. Shin shot again and again, some going wild, others chewing   
into the creature, the heart of the garden, the center of its spirit and   
its caretaker made anew.  
  
The stag caught Shin, dying already, and the flame enveloped both.  
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"All through the darkest nighttime, it's waiting for the right time.   
When a thing is wick, it will grow."  
  
The Secret Garden  
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The classroom was buzzing. Miss Haruna wasn't in yet, and the class was   
out of their seats. Melvin was there, and a tired-looking Molly, her   
friends Katie and Sarah, and all of them were clustered around Serena,   
who had just come in with the tall girl Lita -- and had pushed in the   
wheelchair of Amy Mizuno.  
  
Amy was back in school. She looked tired, but determined. Focused.   
The girls that circled around her, welcoming her back to class, pressing   
her with questions and expressing their sympathy, could sense the   
purpose in Amy and gradually fell silent.  
  
"It is time you all knew," Amy said calmly when they were quiet. "The   
Negaverse threatens all of us, but it makes a particular target of us.   
Of young people."  
  
A murmur went across the class. Another followed it as they saw Lita,   
who was too new to have earned their trust, and Serena and Molly, who   
had, nod in agreement with this strange thing Amy was saying.  
  
"This isn't a problem of adults. It isn't something that should be kept   
hidden. We young people have been the victims of too many Negaverse   
schemes. It is time for us to protect ourselves."  
  
And Amy, with help from the others, began to tell her classmates   
everything she knew.  
,  
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His heart went into his throat when he saw her. Chad had searched so   
hard, and so long. And he had worried so much; since he had returned to   
the Shrine to find it closed and dark and surrounded by police tape he   
had wondered and worried about what had happened to his friends within.  
  
Chad knelt by the bus terminal bench. The girl hardly looked like a   
Shrine Priestess now. There was in her dark eyes a feral look. She had   
the look of a small, dangerous forest creature; there was a wildness   
about her, as if she might snarl or bite.  
  
"Raye," Chad spoke gently. "Come on, Raye; I'm taking you home."  
,  
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Dedicated to the people who work trauma, from surgeons and ICU nurses to   
the paramedics and ambulance drivers. They perform miracles every day.  
  
All song excerpts copyright of Samuel French, Inc. and come from "The   
Secret Garden"; Book and Lyrics by Marsha Norman, Music by Lucy Simon,   
based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  
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Next: Lita has it and Department Six wants it back. Next episode; "The   
God Gun." Be there and I'll show you! 


	17. The God Gun

Scribbler's note:   
  
Back from the politics and back to the action.  
  
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Aiko paused again. She really should have brought her mother, or a friend. No; that probably would just make her more nervous. She touched her hair self-consciously, brushed yet again at her skirt. "Zoom In" was the hottest new talent agency in Tokyo. Once her picture was in their files, her chances at getting placed soared.  
  
There was always a demand for "Tarento." The word came from the English "Talent," and usually meant young, fresh-faced girls who could hold up sample products or sit on television programs nodding and smiling at everything. Aiko knew far too well that tarento were expendable, the source inexhaustible. But there was always a Rie Miyazawa or a Namie Amuro; a biijin tarento who went on to real success. Look at the present Mayor; Aoshima Yukio had been a member of a comedy team!  
  
Aiko's dream was simpler. She just wanted to be known. She wanted to be recognized. She would be just as happy to become a campaign girl for a mobile phone company as she would be if she were to be ushered into Tesuya Komura's hit-making studio. She wanted to be in front of the cameras. She wanted proof of that truth her in-most heart told her; that she was special.  
  
It would help if she wasn't so nervous and so shy. She brushed at her spotless clothes yet once more. She was at the door of the photo room already. Behind her was the excited chatter of the other girls there this morning. In her hands was the application she had already filled out.  
  
The door opened and she all but tip-toed inside. There was a big photographer's backdrop tacked on the wall behind her, reflector-hooded studio lights on all sides. Someone was already efficiently placing her on her marks, tilting her head, giving a final fussy touch to her hair with a silver comb. She wasn't sure if the person was male or female; her attention was held by the camera on the tripod. It was big and heavy with attachments and spidery on its tripod legs and looked like some alien insect crouching there.  
  
The camera stared blindly at her. Aiko's nervousness crested. She might be shy, and she might be driven by her dream, but she wasn't an idiot. Something was wrong here. She didn't know what, but it seemed to center on that camera. She took a step back before she even knew she was going to do it.  
  
The flash came from the camera itself. It was an evil gleam, and the blind lens of the camera continued to glow. Except that Aiko was already scrambling backwards. "It's them! she screamed. "It's the Negaverse!"  
  
Aiko was scrambling, screaming, trying to get to the door. The camera was lurching up, unfolding in some strange way to become bigger and more massive, wrenching itself from the ground to stalk towards her on long metal legs. Her fingers found the door handle. She pulled...and the green light found her. It yanked her back from the door and across the cable-strewn floor. Then green fire was all around her. The camera knelt, fixing that blind eye on her as it drank her life-energy like some sort of mechanical mosquito.  
  
Until a lance of red light flamed across the room. The door smashed back on its hinges. A tall girl in a leather jacket was there, a weapon in her hands.  
  
"Their dreams of stardom are not fodder for the Negaverse's appetite!" the girl declared. "I am Lita Kino, and you, you nasty shutterbug, have taken your last picture!"  
  
Lita didn't wait for it to turn. She started firing. Pictures, backdrops, reflectors, stands, all came shattering down. She fired methodically, over and over again, devastating the studio.  
  
The Shutterbug screamed like a motor drive loading an oversized roll of color film. It dropped Aiko. Then it whipped one tripod leg around so fast it almost cut the tall girl's cheek. Lita threw herself to one side. The leg came around again; Lita's hand found a broken bit of light stand and held it up to block -- but her gun went flying.  
  
Now the eye was within range. The green light reached out. Aiko gasped as her rescuer was caught and held by the green beam.  
  
"You...don't...get...me...that...easily!" Lita gasped out. The tendons stood out in her neck as she struggled to push herself off the floor. As Aiko watched, a glowing symbol began to appear on the tall girl's forehead. Shivering with the effort, the tall girl got up on her elbows, then to one knee.  
  
"Lita! Here!" Aiko cried. She slid the strange gun across the floor.  
  
It all happened in a split second. The green light blinked for a moment as the Shutterbug glanced at Aiko. The gun fairly leapt into Lita's hands. As the Shutterbug whipped back towards her a ruby beam lanced through the middle of the glassy lens. It froze, then toppled in a clatter of broken parts.  
  
Lita let herself fall on her back. They lay like that for a moment, panting for breath, in the shattered remains of the studio. Then each rolled her head far enough to share a grin. "Yeah!" Lita said. "Dusted!"  
  
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SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS  
  
Episode Seventeen : The God Gun  
  
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Sirens were outside in the night, blocks away but getting closer with their electronic wails. A helicopter whispered overhead, blades cutting the heavy warm air of early evening. It was already July, warm with the promise of summer vacation just two weeks away.   
  
Before they left the ruined studio Lita made sure every girl there had a good look at the shattered heap of the Negaverse creature. They found a Polaroid and used up every film pack in the place, and each girl took a handful of those as well. The days of treating this like a private war were OVER.  
  
Lita walked briskly to the nearest bus stop and took the first Eastbound she saw. When she got out she was almost in the Roppongi. She slipped the transit pass back into its case. It was a nice evening for a walk and she had thirty minutes still to get to the Crown Arcade.  
  
There was a bit of excitement in front of Roppongi Station. Lita strolled over there. She heard the amplified voice even before she saw the two black sound trucks parked there. There was a small crowd listening and even more people ignoring the speaker, two policemen standing in a relaxed way nearby, and the whisper of a helicopter circling slowly overhead. Lita shaded her eyes against the bright lights of the Roppongi and looked up, but she couldn't spot the helicopter. She shrugged.  
  
"What are Murayama and the LDP thinking?" The right-wing harangue was already in full swing as Lita approached. "Selling us out to the Koreans -- pure appeasement, that's what it is. It wasn't enough that our government gave them tears...did they have to give them a billion yen and four shiny new reactors, too? Does North Korea really need more nukes? Those Nodong-1 missiles are already," and here he pointed dramatically at a movie marquee across the plaza, "A Clear and Present Danger! Do you want them to be able to reach our homeland with nuclear warheads as well?"  
  
Lita stopped for a moment and rested her forearms on a bike rack. This speaker was better than most. A plump man with sweat-shiny face and the woolen belt of a laborer beneath his cheap suit, he looked more the part then the Yakuza guards and drivers of the black sound trucks behind him.  
  
"Why do we let the Clinton White House dictate our foreign policy? Are they so good at it? Look at Saddam Hussein...already he has rebuilt his army and won't let U.N. inspectors near his weapons labs. And that's exactly what the Diet wants to do with Kim the Younger; pay him off now so he can be a bigger problem later. So they promised to stop their nuclear weapons programs. What on earth will prevent them from starting up again once our backs are turned?  
  
"We have enough to do here at home. Kobe still needs help rebuilding. Our streets and our subways are not safe."  
  
Lita shivered at that last, herself. The poison gas attack in the Tokyo Subway had been only three months ago.   
  
"We do not need the outside world and their International Whaling Commissions, and their nuclear testing, and their riots, massacres and civil wars. The business of government is not in Burundi, Bosnia, or Burma. It is here on our streets, in our failing economy, in the apathy and the laxity of moral standards and the thinning of Japanese blood by..."  
  
Lita tuned him out there. The whole "Purity of Japan" thing struck her as terribly silly, and not a little distasteful as well. It was one of the touchstones of the right wing; a xenophobic "Japan for the Japanese" that distorted their thinking on everything from economic policy to education reforms. Fortunately the fanatical right-wing had been far from power since the end of World War II. Unfortunately, even with the LDP back in power they were at their strongest yet.  
  
Politics wasn't something that much interested Lita. Amy had told her a few things, though. Lita shook her head wryly. When did that girl find time to sleep?  
  
In another fifteen minutes she was in Azabu-juuban. Kosuke was waiting for her at the corner. The wiry young gang-member was leaning against the sleek fairing of a large motorcycle. A Kawasaki Ninja, Lita saw as she came up to it. It was black with red pinstriping and looked mean and powerful.  
  
"Bo...bo...bosozuku!" she said, hiding her mouth with her hand.  
  
"Don't be cute." Kosuke came to his feet. "It isn't stolen -- I'm borrowing it from a friend."  
  
The note of the helicopter changed as it made a sharp turn somewhere above them. Kosuke and Lita were silent for a moment, listening to it. "That's the same helicopter I heard before," Lita said. "I've been hearing it since I left that studio."  
  
Kosuke's face changed. "Get on," he said.  
  
"Kosuke?"  
  
"It's got to be the gun. They're tracking you, Lita -- you have to lose that helicopter! Don't go home. Meet me at Akihabara Station, electronics arcade side, at ten. And whatever you do, don't power up the gun!"  
  
Lita didn't waste time switching mental gears. She swung on to the bike. The electric starter whined for less than a second before the engine caught. As it coughed and stuttered she quickly killed the choke. The moment it stabilized she levered it off the stand and let out the clutch.  
  
"Ken," she murmured as memory caught at her. He had taught her how to ride. Then the black motorbike was roaring into action. She felt the front fork lifting and quickly leaned, fighting the front wheel back to the ground. The engine was already whining and she shifted quickly to the next gear.  
  
The note of the helicopter changed, too. Now it was obvious they were in pursuit. They would be in radio contact with something on the ground...someone or ones in cars who would attempt to cut her off. Lita grinned into the slipstream and leaned in. She was bare-headed to the wind and she had to squint her eyes against tearing up.  
  
Salaryman work ethic or no it was too late for most office workers; the streets she traveled now were as vacant as anything in crowded Tokyo could ever be. The bike purred, the liquid-cooled OHC shoving her up to sixty KPH and the progressive rear suspension taking the road smoothly. She shot through the canyons between office buildings, through intersections without slowing, city lights flashing across the glossy fairing like shooting stars.  
  
The helicopter was still behind her. It still showed no lights, and it's engine noise was strangely muted, leaving mostly the sword-swish of displaced air from the spinning blades.   
  
Lita cut into an alley. She had to whip through a series of rapid s-bends, shifting her weight completely off the seat, to slip past piles of crates and parked vehicles. She grinned more broadly. She had ridden before, with Ken, but not like this!  
  
She fishtailed a lot more then she liked as she pulled out of the alley. And she had lost quite a bit of speed, too. The helicopter wasn't fooled by any of this; it was now almost on top of her.   
  
Lita leaned in again, sliding back into the seat until she was lying across the gas tank. She was in the warehouse district now, with lots of clear road ahead of her. She worked up through the gears until she was in sixth, opening up the throttle until the gauge flickered just below the 14,000 RPM redline. The wind tore at her like a large, furry animal. Her own hair was a lash, whipping across her face so hard she was sure it drew blood.  
  
And she held it there. The coolant temperature rose slowly but steadily. The motor screamed into the night. To the late-night delivery drivers or lost post-work drinkers she would be a phantom, a low-flying fighter plane, a banshee that whipped out of sight almost before it was seen in the first place.  
  
She pulled ahead, well ahead. She kept going until she couldn't hear the note of the rotor blades any more. Then she quickly braked to head off in a different direction. It was a little too quickly. The handlebars twisted in her hands, catching her injured wrist by surprise. She fought them back but too far -- the bike went sideways on her. She wrenched her weight back and laid it down before it could flip her; sparks sprayed around her as it slid.  
  
She went almost ten meters on her side. Then the night was silent again, nothing but the ticking of overheated metal and her own panting breath. Lita tugged and wriggled and got her leg out from under the fallen bike. Her jeans leg was shredded to mid-thigh and blood was oozing from a couple scrapes -- but it didn't look serious.  
  
Lita stood. Wrenched the bike back up and popped the center stand to hold it. She'd jammed the gearbox and the engine had died -- but nothing seemed permanently damaged there, either.  
  
"Whew!" she said. Then she shouted it into the night. "Whoo-hoo!"  
  
Then she threw her leg back over, started the engine again and headed off into the shadows.  
  
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The Akihabara. Neon and crowds. The largest and most esoteric electronics mart in the world and the only place in Tokyo where you were allowed to haggle. It was night now, and the wide low awning on this side of the JR station was crawling with technical sounds. There seemed to be an awful lot of serious-looking young men about, and few of them had tans.  
  
"Lita!" Amy waved from near the ticket machines. She turned her chair about briskly and headed towards the tall girl. Lita noticed she no longer seemed confined to it...more like she was simply sitting in it for the time being.  
  
Kosuke materialized in that way he had. "I have contacts here," he said.  
  
"Amy's with me," Lita said. It seemed necessary to remind him.  
  
They pushed through the main arcade, the wiry little gang-member in the lead. Racks of portable televisions and walkmans, stacks of hard drives and floppy drives and VCRs, boxes of recordable media and software, bins of components. Flashing lights, day-glo price stickers, cryptically technical descriptions on small pieces of paper and scrawled across masking tape. Amy looked with bright eyes, taking in motherboards and RAM chips and multi-legged CPUs with their backbones of bright heatsink, miniature cameras and FM crystals and lithium power cells in bubble wrap.  
  
They reached the back of one stuffed and junky-looking little shop. A serious and seemingly balding young man opened a tiny plywood door plastered with invoices. They passed through. It was a storeroom crowded with boxes crammed right up to the ceiling. There was just room for Amy's chair, which was good, because Lita would just as soon not have to annoy them by throwing their stock out into the arcade.  
  
At the back of the room was another door. Amy murmured dryly, "Curiouser and curiouser."  
  
Inside was a large wooden table strewn with loose parts. Oscilloscopes and power supplies and soldering stations sat everywhere. Tall shelves covered every wall and on them was a gluttony of mysterious components. Three were seated about the table. One young man was plump and had a white Comdex t-shirt. One was thin as a rail, with bad skin and a "Dirty Pair" t-shirt. The last had long hair and wore all black and his shirt read "Doom-II."  
  
"Kosuke," one said without getting up. "She have the gun?"  
  
"Who's the chick in the wheelchair?" another asked.  
  
Amy smiled brightly. Lita raised her eyebrow briefly. She wondered how her friend would handle this. "I just came along for the ride," Amy said. "I might look for some parts for my new computer on the way out."  
  
"Let me guess," said the large one. "You got a shiny new Compaq to surf the internet."  
  
"Naw," Amy said lightly. "I let the server deal with searches. It has the firewall and the RAID array. I'm building my own high-power portable."  
  
"Want a P54C mobo? I could get you one of the 100 Mhz chips." It was a challenge; prove she knew what she was talking about or shut up.  
  
Amy smiled again. "Are you kidding? The Pentium still has trouble dividing by zero. Besides, the 603e runs at least as fast for half the power and a quarter the heat -- even when clock-chipped."  
  
Lita glanced from one to the other. It was all Geek to her.  
  
One of the boys gave a low whistle. "I take it you aren't building a stock winbox," he said with a grudging admiration growing in his voice.  
  
"Let Microsloth near my baby? It's going to be a 'nix box, probably the Linux 1.2.0 until I get around to compiling my own kernel," Amy said. "I'll be mostly running a rapid-access database with an intelligent search algorithm I've been working up in LISP."  
  
"Whoo!" The one with the "Doom" t-shirt stood up and offered his hand, palm up. Amy slapped it. "Chibi, Megane, Heya," he pointed around the room. "Is she super-geek too?" he looked towards Lita.  
  
Amy grinned. Lita was beginning to see that was a very, very dangerous expression on her black-haired friend. "She hits people," Amy said. "She's good at it."  
  
"Oh," the boys said. They sat for a long moment, looking at Lita, taking in just how big she was and how confidently she stood, and digesting the idea that she might be just as good at what she did as Amy was at what she did. The room finished tilting, and now it was the boys who were looking uphill.  
  
"May we see the gun?" Kosuke asked for them.  
  
The weapon looked even more technical under good light. It was heavy, two-handed, and looked like it came off the set of the last Star Wars movie. Chibi, the big one, opened it up carefully. "Well looky here," he said. "See how these components are just epoxied in? And how that mount there was filed off? This thing's a tool-up prototype. Not the first working model. But one of the first attempt to run it out in production numbers."  
  
"That means they might have more of these?" Lita asked.  
  
"In time," he answered. "This has government contract written all over it, and that slows the pipeline a lot. Figure three years or more before testing is done even on the prototype. Oh, wow!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"The damn thing has a fuel cell! No wonder it seems to run forever."  
  
"A fuel cell?" The others crowded in. "Cool!"  
  
"Any idea how it works?" Amy asked.  
  
"No idea at all. And from the looks of that discharge tube, neither do they. Typical engineer thinking...if it works, scale it up. Let someone else worry about the theory behind it."  
  
Chibi bent a magnifier over the gun, and spread out a clean t-shirt on the workbench. Soon his friend was handing him tools and recording parts as he dug into the gun's innards.  
  
The guy with the long hair and the "Doom" shirt drew Amy aside while the others worked. "I saw some things last week that could be the start of a real dream machine -- if someone had the cash to put it all together," he said.  
  
"That would be?" Amy asked.  
  
"Some mil-spec titanium cases out of a canceled US Air Force project. Also have a friend who might be able to get his hand on a variant of the tsunami motherboard they use for running benchmarks at Motorolla. Fit those together and you'd have a start on a laptop that would make a 530c 'Blackbird' look like the Spruce Goose."  
  
"I'll get you the cash," Amy said. "I can do the soldering side, but I don't have the tools for case modification."  
  
"Be glad to help. This sounds like fun!"  
  
"Hey, you guys," Lita called. "I think we've found it."  
  
"Here's the transmitter." Chibi pulled a component out of the guts of the gun. "Nasty business. It went into transmit mode when you fired the gun. Typical government paranoia; they don't even trust their own people."  
  
"They were tracking you by radio, Lita," Amy said. "If you hadn't ridden out of range on that bike they would have grabbed you by now."  
  
"Whew," Lita said. "Good time to smash it."  
  
"Wait." Amy held up a hand. "Let's not. This could be an ace in the hole if we use it right."  
  
"Hey, I just realized..." the three boys went into a hurried discussion. They came up smiling. "We think we've got just the parts you need to turn that transmitter back on the guys who made it..."  
  
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IHe knew what was going to happen.  
  
That was a simplification. The future wasn't like a book, Greg thought. It was more like a weather forecast, and for roughly the same reason. He had attempted to explain it to Amy once.  
  
"Chaos Mathematics," the super-smart girl had said back to him. "The slightest random variation multiplies geometrically over time. A butterfly flaps its wings in Burma. Two weeks later there's a monsoon in Madagascar."  
  
There were patterns, flows. From day to day, moment to moment the patterns changed around him, reacting to every random fluctuation. But some events persisted. They might change slightly as to the cast, or the date, but they seemed all but inevitable.   
  
Queen Beryl and the Moon Princess. They had to meet. They had to play out this last endgame of a conflict that had started when she was but a child. And in most of his visions, the Moon Princess would already be the Queen's prisoner when they met at last.  
  
"Greg?" the friendly, helpful doctor said gently. Greg looked up, but just to be polite. He could see this friendly unassuming room with the big table, the scattered brightly-colored toys, and the unassuming file cabinet quite well in the sight of his mind's eye.   
  
"My parents told you I was having bad dreams," he said to the child psychologist.  
  
"Would you like to talk about them?"  
  
The visions had been getting stronger and stronger by the day. Greg moved now through a dream world, a thousand shadows chasing every moment. They were most disconcerting when they revolved around his own actions. As they did at this moment. He knew why they were getting stronger, of course. He knew the thing that lurked inside him and longed to be removed. And he welcomed what would happen -- no living thing could see the future as he did and remain sane for long.  
  
This moment. A choice had crystallized. A path he had never seen before. Down the old path he saw himself change. He saw himself end suddenly in a number of horrid ways -- but in too many of those paths, not before he had killed Amy.  
  
But now was a new path, narrow and treacherous. It lead to pain, himself writhing on a steel table, perhaps dying there. But somewhere beyond that table lay a slim chance of a hope greater than any he had ever seen before.  
  
Pain lay on that path. Excruciating pain, pain enough to drive someone mad. But on this path lay no chance that he would come to bring death to the serious girl with the midnight-black hair.  
  
"I would like to talk about my nightmares," Greg told the child psychologist. Not a bad man at all. Not a man who even guessed that what he wrote about his patient would trickle higher and higher into the secret networks until someone at Department Six saw something they understood -- and sent their men out after Greg.  
  
He told the man what was needed. Then went back to school. And marveled how calm he could be, and how bright the sunlight was, when he knew his doom so well; to the hour, to the smell of the anesthetic they would use, to the first bite of their cold steel instruments./I  
  
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Amy was sweating freely. She pulled at one leg then the other, using a bath towel for leverage. The Wagner frames had been removed recently but her legs were still terribly stiff.   
  
The first days had been the hardest. It took most of her strength and will just to face her fear and get out of the chair and try to move her mangled legs again. And it had been as bad as she had feared. Maybe worse. She couldn't even straighten her legs completely. Her ankles were like wood. And the moment she tried to force her legs a little past those limits the pain had been sharp and hot.  
  
Not even her mother knew the tears she had shed. And not even Amy knew how she had managed to keep at it anyhow. To push against fear and pain and to try against all hope to get her legs to move freely again. But after the first few days it became easier. She could see and feel the difference every day. And she knew that she would once again, one day, walk.  
  
It was early evening now, and her mother was already home. The house was warm and clean and she knew the bath was already hot and waiting for her. Amy went through everything on the Xeroxed sheet the hospital's physical therapist had given her. It still wasn't easy for her, and she gritted her teeth and held back her fears and doubts with both hands. The left leg was still giving her trouble -- it wouldn't reach full extension. Amy massaged the back of her thigh, digging her fingers into the great muscle there. She stretched the leg as far out on the tatami as it would go. Took a deep breath. Then pushed down at her own knee with both hands.  
  
Her cry of pain brought her mother running. "Amy! You're overdoing it!"  
  
"I'm not!" Amy's face was streaming with tears, but she was smiling. "That was a good pain...I broke loose some real scar tissue there. It's moving a lot more easily now." She looked up at her mother. "I know what I'm doing, mom. Trust me."  
  
"I...I do," she said. Her face held mingled pain and pride. Pride in her daughter, and the pain any mother feels when she understands she can't protect her child from everything. She made an effort and smiled. "However," she said as lightly as she could manage, "in my professional opinion you've done enough for one day,"   
  
"I concur, Doctor," Amy grinned in return.  
  
"Catch your breath, dear, then take your bath. I'll have dinner ready."  
  
"Mother..." Amy said. It was time. It was the moment.   
  
"Amy?"  
  
"Mom, you do trust me. You know I've never lied to you. And you trust my quality of thinking. Mom, I'm going to tell you something, but I need for you to think of me as a trained observer...not as a child spinning tales."  
  
"I'm not sure I understand," her mother said. "Please go on."  
  
"April," Amy said. "The first rash of cases of a mysterious ailment. No pathogen, nothing ever showed up on bloodwork, but people were falling over in the street. A few even died."  
  
"Amy..." Doctor Mizuno said warningly. "I remember those. It was decided it was public health business. It was decided at the highest levels that no action was to be taken locally."  
  
"You mean it was decided to cover it up," Amy said simply.  
  
Her mother just looked at her. Her eyes narrowed as her gaze went inward; remembering, analyzing. "Go on," she said.  
  
"There were also creatures sighted. Never a good eye-witness, never a photograph."  
  
"I...remember. I still hear gossip about those things. One of the nurses in my department claims to have seen one."  
  
"I met my first one at the Crystal Academy cram school," Amy said. She took a deep breath. "I fought and destroyed it."  
  
"Amy?" Her mother knelt by her and took one hand in her own. She looked searchingly into her daughter's eyes. Her gaze flickered towards her daughter's injured legs.  
  
Amy gave the slightest nod. "I'll get to that," she said. "I fought another at Osa-P. Serena Tskuino was there with me. And Molly. There was already another girl who had started fighting the things. A Shinto Priestess at the Hikawa Shrine."  
  
"Raye Hino," her mother said quietly. "She vanished, when the shrine was closed."  
  
"We learned, bit by bit, that these things were just soldiers. The first sorties from an enemy from somewhere else. Another, parallel reality we've been calling the Negaverse." Amy sighed. She reached into the purse on the low table near her. Fished out something that glittered.  
  
"That wasn't the whole story," she told her mother then. "The Negaverse had attacked once before, a long time ago. There were...defenders...who had beaten them back." She held up the transformation pen. In her eyes new tears sparkled. "I'm your daughter. Nothing will ever change that. But once, in another time and place, I was also the Princess Mercury...defender of the Silver Imperium."  
  
She saw the doubt growing in her mother's eyes. "Mom," she said in a low voice. "Remember who is telling you this. Remember that you trust me. Remember all the other things you have heard, and seen, and could not help wondering about."  
  
"It would help...it would help if there was some concrete proof," her mother said doubtfully.  
  
Amy held the pen sadly, her hand open, the pen on the open palm. "I can't use it now," she said. "I'm not strong enough yet."  
  
"Amy, Amy," her mother shook her head. "I can believe all this. I don't want to but I can. It makes too much sense; it explains too many things that I have seen but tried to ignore." She sighed. Then she cupped her hands around her daughter's face. "What I can't accept is you out there battling against it. I've never lived in wartime. I don't know what it is like to have a child sent into the Army, going out to war. You are my child, my sweet girl, and I am not ready to see you as a soldier."  
  
"I...I understand," Amy said. "I knew this was going to be hard for you."  
  
"Does Mrs. Tsukino know?" she asked suddenly, sharply.  
  
Amy's face twisted a little in pain. "I don't think so," she said. "I tried to protect her daughter, mom. I tried to keep her out of it. But I can't. Serena is important to this somehow. I got hurt after I shut her out."  
  
She sat up, uncurled her legs with a wince. Put her weight on the edge of the table. "All young people are involved in this whether we want it or not. The Negaverse prefers us for its victims. And it is too fast, too fluid for the normal authorities to shut them down. We'll take all the help we can get, mom -- but like it or not this is our battle too."  
  
"Amy!" her mother said. She held one hand in front of her mouth. Then dropped it, slowly. Her mouth curved slowly into a grin as wide as any of Amy's. "Amy....you're STANDING."  
  
She caught her daughter just before she fell.  
  
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Yamamura looked moodily over the dark water of Tokyo Bay. It was a clear night and very pretty and it didn't suit his mood, not at all.  
  
They'd picked him for Department Six because he was a certain kind of cop. Yamamura recognized that now, and it wasn't a flattering recognition. They'd picked him because he was idealistic, old-fashioned, even a little stodgy. A cop that insisted on doing things by the book even when looking the other way would be better for the department...or his own promotion.  
  
He was also the only kind of cop that could function out here without supervisors or clear orders. A youngster of unblinking loyalty who followed orders with a snap would fall apart without them -- or lose all care and all morality in his uncontrolled freedom. And why was Yamamura on his own? Plausible deniability, like they said in the spy movies. He was out here with just enough support to get the job done. If something went wrong Department Six would vanish back into the shadows and all that was left would be a cop who'd exceeded his orders.  
  
If all went well the "monsters" and "anti-monsters" his contact had spoken of would take each other out, and he would clean up the evidence. No more problem, and no public outcry either. If it went badly, though?  
  
He looked at the sparkle of the Rainbow Bridge and the late-night traffic. The "Yurikamome" monorail was just sliding around the flamboyant sight-seeing curve before it headed over the water towards him.  
  
Amy. In a wheelchair. He couldn't remove the image from his eyes. A lively young girl crippled in this secret war of theirs. She could be his child. Could he stand by and let that happen again, to another?  
  
"Inspector." The voice was low, the man hidden in coat and in shadow. Yamamura wasn't entirely surprised to see him, even though he had come out here on a whim, making no prior contact with anyone.  
  
"I can't...." Yamamura said. "You have to stop them. For their own good."  
  
"Hm?" The man made an interrogative sound.  
  
"The children. They've gotten it into their heads that they are responsible for fighting this thing. It isn't right! That's why we have police, that's why we have public health agencies and Self Defense Forces! How can we be one of the most advanced nations in the world yet let children fight our battles for us?"  
  
"I understand how upset you are, Inspector."  
  
Yamamura stiffened. This wasn't the man he had met with before.  
  
"You are right," the man said then. "This is no longer something that should be in private hands. As a matter of fact, we've been having some trouble locating these children you mentioned. Perhaps you could help?"  
  
Yamamura didn't like the sound of any of it. "There is a school involved," he temporized.  
  
"We know all about that school," the man said bluntly. "Names, please, Inspector." When Yamamura continued to hesitate, the man said, "Now."  
  
The skin was crawling on the back of his neck. Primitive fear-reaction. He couldn't see a weapon, but he knew one was there. Yamamura's own gun was at the back of his belt, below his coat. He'd never reach it in time. And maybe this was for the best anyhow. Official interest, official orders, the children ordered away from their rash path.   
  
He could try to tell himself that, but he didn't really believe it. He opened his mouth. The right names, or a convincing lie?  
  
Something "chuffed" ever-so-lightly over the sound of the water. Then the man in the overcoat slumped over.  
  
Yamamura watched, not moving, as a second figure strolled nearer. This man's coat was open, worn loosely, and he felt in his pocket for cigarette and lighter as he strolled. This was the man Yamamura had met before. "Haven't you ever watched a spy movie, Inspector?" he said sarcastically as he neared. "You never go to the same spot twice." He shrugged and pointed with the cigarette in his mouth before he lit it. "He's just knocked out. Which is a lot better than you were going to be."  
  
"What in blazes is going on here?" Yamamura burst out. He was shaking from his brush with death. And filled with anger now that it was over.  
  
"Call it a jurisdictional squabble," his contact said. "The real story is far more complicated. But then, so is anything the government does. Your young friends have been raising quite a stink of late." By this time he was near enough to lower his voice. "Some people high in our organization want it stopped before the smell gets to those responsible for funding."  
  
"So it's the old story of look active to save your job?" Yamamura asked with heavy humor.   
  
"Worse." The cigarette flared, and there was enough light for Yamamura to see the anger the man was making no attempt to hide. "The pressure's on to get results, and they don't care what methods they use."  
  
"You don't mean..."  
  
"I don't make war on children!" the man spat. "There's something called the 'Functional Plans Committee,' Inspector. Ever hear a more puerile organizational name? They aren't what they sound like. What they are is the late Shin Taki and men like him. And they've taken a child already. A boy they think has some link to these Negaverse things."  
  
"I...I understand," Yamamura said. "I'll pass on the warning."  
  
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"Nuts to that!" Lita said loudly.  
  
"I agree," Amy said with a voice that was calm but way too flat.  
  
Inspector Kenjiro Yamamura looked from one to the other. He had never felt older that at that moment. Here he was, the previous generation, the ones that thought they knew how things ought to be done. And here were two vibrant, confident young women willing and able to take care of themselves and turn the rest of the world on it's ear while they were at it.  
  
He tried again, anyhow. "Don't you see how ridiculous it is?" he asked. "A couple of fourteen-year old girls running around after dark, trying to do battle with some sort of nightmare creatures? What do you hope to do against them?"  
  
"I have Shin's gun," Lita offered blandly.  
  
"That's nice," Yamamura said sarcastically. "And you?" He swung on Amy. "That frost giant creature sent you to the hospital. I can't imagine why you would want to risk yourself again!"  
  
"Inspector." Amy's voice had a clear, calm tone that cut right through what he might have been about to say. "I'm afraid you have not been entirely in the loop." She set her hands in front of her, fingers laced, in a quite unconscious parody of the functionary Yamamura had met weeks ago at the Metropolitan Government Offices.  
  
"This isn't about creatures roaming the streets," she said bluntly. "This isn't even a local problem. What we have here, Inspector, is the prelude to invasion."  
  
For the second time in far too few hours the skin prickled at the back of his neck. "Invasion?" he echoed.  
  
"Those Generals we've met recently," Amy said. "They are vanguards of the invasion force. All of this activity has been to gather energy; energy they will use to crack the dimensional barriers. According to my calculations they will reach their goal within weeks. Perhaps less."  
  
"You mean...hundreds more of those things are on their way?" Yamamura shuddered.  
  
"Many more than that," Amy told him. "They mean to make this world theirs."  
  
Lita snorted. Amy looked at the tall girl, and Lita shrugged. Old argument, it seemed. "Greg believed..." Amy started to say.  
  
Yamamura stiffened. "That was the name," he said slowly, "of the boy." He watched Amy's face, dreading her reaction.  
  
Amy didn't say anything. It looked like she couldn't. The tall girl stood abruptly. She slapped the table, palms down, then leaned forward. "We already decided we were going to rescue the boy," she said fiercely. "This just makes it personal."  
  
"We don't even know where they are holding him," Yamamura said.  
  
"Right, then. I'm going to see the Oyabun."  
  
"I'm cracking the Ministry's mainframe." Amy had found her voice.  
  
"First one that learns anything call in." And Lita reached over to press Amy's hand. "We'll find him, Amy. We'll find him."  
  
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Already the garden was changing. No wild thing could stay so free and untamed forever, not within the confines of the great city. As in so many other things compromise had to be accepted. To save it from developers the gumi had taken it. Now there would be yakuza parties in its quiet spaces. And more blood had been shed for it...if perhaps just bloody noses on a few that needed convincing to take the deal Shimizu had offered.  
  
The garden was dark, wet from night fog, and smelled of wet earth and mildewed wood with a slight but definite touch of decay. The cottage that had been the old gardener's had been stripped bare and had the sweet tang of pine cleansers. The sliding screens were open to the garden's darkness.  
  
The yakuza boss was seated on the bare tatami, clad only in kimono. He didn't seem to mind the darkness. Neither did Lita. She could hear his breathing, hear the rustling of fabric, sense the warmth of body heat, smell the presence of more than one man in the room. She moved as if she were the blind swordswoman out of a samurai movie, her sneakers almost silent on the old wooden boards.   
  
Shimizu nodded gravely. For neither of them was darkness a hindrance. Neither would it be to the bodyguards that lurked somewhere behind him.  
  
She sat and they contemplated the darkened garden.   
  
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Amy was in a darkness of her own. Monitors gleamed around about her. The LEDs on modems and the racked hard drives blinked rapidly in a REM of their own. Amy's fingers moved rapidly across the keyboard, needing no light to find their place. The mainframes were as permeable as she expected them to be. Hacker paranoia was paying off -- for the hackers. Everything had password protection now, but once you cracked that level, there was little security behind it.  
  
She selected a minor official at random. There was no time for a subtle hack or a work of art. There was only time for a brute-force approach; one that would be uncovered within days. She reversed the official's email to find his account, then threw his wife's name at it for password. No go. Amy remembered a little detail and opened up another connection to check a kennel club BBS. Back again with the name of the politician's dog.  
  
Once in she browsed his account and came up with the location of the local sysadmin. She didn't hesitate at the next challenge, but typed in "god." And as in so many cases, God was root...and vice-versa.  
  
Amy noticed she had typed "whoami" more than three times in the past few minutes. She hooked up another keyboard and got another physical machine out there with it's own i.p. address. Of course everything was passing through multiple systems; she was bouncing through a server in a college in America and another in an internet start-up in Singapore, among others.  
  
She started a new government department, the "Mare Imbrium Water Quality Control." Applied for and using her new sysadmin privileges granted herself an account in the Shinjuku mainframes. Backdated everything, and roughed in a six-month history. Then set her new department making inquiries and data searches within the internal network, while backdating all of them with her sysadmin's privileges. Of course none of this would hold up if the back-up tapes were pulled.  
  
Then she started trolling tidbits. Sleeping sickness among water workers, first. Then sea monster rumors.  
  
She was waiting for something else to bite. Something outside the Ministry computers. Something that watched for just this sort of rumor.  
  
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"Those bodyguards of Ehara's," the Oyabun told Lita, "Were supplied by Kanegawa-gumi. We've touched before, on other issues."  
  
By taking the garden under his protection, Lita realized, Shimizu had put himself in opposition to another gang.  
  
"It was going to happen soon enough," the Oyabun told her bluntly. Lita understood. Obliquely, he was telling her that whatever he did, he would always be guided by the best interests of the gumi.  
  
Then he chuckled, lightly. "Did you really think you could beat up four of them at once?" he asked.  
  
Lita shrugged in the darkness. "I didn't worry about it," she said. "I just fought."  
  
"We can't help you find this missing boy," the Oyabun said then. It wasn't the jump it seemed -- everything he had said so far had lead up to this point.  
  
"Amy will find him," Lita said. She hoped so, for her friend's sake.  
  
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Only the fire burning in her kept her awake. She was still too weak, her energies drained with the task of rebuilding her ruined legs. She could not fail this time. She would not.   
  
No faceless agencies, no hot-heads looking for quick and dirty solutions, no political game-players looking for the most expedient answer, could be trusted here. They had proven it now, by taking Greg. That was the way outside agencies would react; by simplifying, by going after obvious targets, by squashing whatever made the most noise -- not whatever was the real threat.  
  
A response. A quick flashing of codes. Amy jumped at it. What she found was such a kludge she was annoyed she hadn't found it before. It was pry-barred into the database with so little finesse and so much waste she should have bumped against it while trying to move around in there.  
  
She started tracing back. And stopped. One eyebrow went up, Spock-like. There was a tap on the tap. Something so tricky and neat it was pure chance she had spotted it. She read the logs. Tentatively, she started a tracert.  
  
And sat back, blinking, as it dropped smoothly off the net. Whoever this was, whatever this was, had skills to burn.  
  
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"What do you think of Sampai and Kosuke?" the Oyabun asked Lita.  
  
She took her time about answering. The garden had grown chill, and a sliver of a late-rising moon brushed the wet grass with a pale silver.  
  
"They're no motorcycle gang," she said at last. "They work for you, don't they."  
  
The yakuza boss moved just slightly. It had an impatient sound, though.  
  
"Kosuke has some fighting skills," Lita said then. "He's tough. I'm not sure I understand his deference. And Sampai? I really don't know what to think about him."  
  
"The gumi can not involve itself," the Oyabun said bluntly. "Not now, at least. But I will send you soldiers. And they will be armed. They will answer to Sampai until the boy has been rescued."  
  
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Amy closed her eyes. Opened them again, with an effort. Then she bent over, fumbled at the Velcro on her braces until they were fastened again. Got her crutches into her hands. Lurched upwards, then waited for the darkened computer room to stop swimming -- for gleaming monitors to stay in place instead of wandering across her vision like an obscure screen saver.  
  
She made it to the bathroom intact. Got some fresh water on the way back. The one geek trick she had never adopted was the bottomless appetite for Diet Pepsi.   
  
On her monitor was something new. Someone...someone had hacked her. Expertly. And stopped just short of the last firewall, as if in some strange gentlemanly courtesy. There was a message, now...a message imbedded in a code stream, not a mere email. But a message utterly clear for all of that.  
  
"Amy. Glad to see you are recovering. What you seek is at Building 19, Nuke City."  
  
And at the bottom, a single signature;  
  
"Jarod."  
  
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Four black vans moved swiftly through the night. Four vans with stolen plates, with filed-down chassis numbers, and with contents that would make a motorcycle patrolman turn white.  
  
Amy was sleeping like a child, curled up on a seat with the braces loosened on her legs and someone's jacket tucked around her. Crowded into the van around her were hardened yakuza, bold with tattoos, in dark clothing and leather jackets, callused hands with missing fingers and noses that had been broken at least once in the past.  
  
Not one of them would harm a hair on her head. The Oyabun had been very clear with them, of course. But as the vans moved down the long freeway out from Tokyo and across the Kanto Plain more than one battered yakuza face had taken on a softer expression; already Amy was less a charge to them, and more like an adapted daughter of the gumi.  
  
Lita didn't care. She sat with long legs drawn up, relaxed but ever-alert. It wasn't a matter of trusting the gumi, or not trusting the gumi. Amy was her partner and her friend and anyone or anything that wanted to mess with her would have to go through Lita first.  
  
One hundred and thirty kilometers north-east of Tokyo was the coastal town of Tokaimura; the town they called "Nuke city." Between Sumitomo and others there were over fifteen nuclear-related facilities there. Breeder reactors. Labs. Experimental reactors. Test facilities. There were government fingers everywhere and far more was classified than was not.  
  
It would take them over two hours to get there. It was already three AM. Lita didn't struggle against sleep. She just didn't think about it.  
  
On the seat in front of her Amy twitched, then cried out softly in her sleep. Nightmares, Lita guessed. Probably remembering the moment when that giant had almost killed her. Had shattered her legs. A man with a long red cut across his face patted the sleeping girl's shoulder comfortingly, and tucked the borrowed jacket back around her.  
  
Lita didn't have nightmares any more. She no longer woke up in the middle of the night to go walking through the apartment trying to find her parents.  
  
There were over twenty men between the four vehicles. And two women besides themselves. One was small, very quiet and, Lita suspected, very deadly. The other had medical training and might have once been Shimizu's mistress. Lita understood why they might need a doctor when they found Greg. She didn't think about that, either. Not much.  
  
Amy was going to be a bad influence, Lita mused wryly. She wasn't in the habit of worrying about what if's. She wasn't much in the habit of planning ahead, either. But Amy's habits of thought were already starting to wear off on her. Already, Lita was beginning to worry about what the future might bring.  
  
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At last they were there. The freeway exit sign had a cartoon drawing of Albert Einstein. The four black vans cruised purposely down Atomic Research Street, turned left at Bohr Ave, crossed Pauli Lane, then turned left again at the curving stretch of Oppenheimer. "I have become Shiva, destroyer of worlds," Amy murmured. It was obscure even for her. "Oppy said that after they set off the first hydrogen bomb," she said, but not as if she were explaining.  
  
On the horizon were the cooling towers of Sumitomo's reactors numbers 1 and 3. To the right, the low gray buildings of a waste-treatment plant, sealed since an accident in late '91. Most of the street corners here had large, 1950's loudspeakers up on poles.   
  
The plan was not a complicated one. The gumi meant to go in fast and get out fast. There wasn't really a point in trying trickery or disguise. Besides, Lita found herself thinking, even government goons came from a certain social circle. It was old money, it was Tokyo University, it was Shinjuku and the Tokyo hills. Yakuza, for all their samurai dreams, were blue collar. Old Edo, farmer stock from Kansai, resident Koreans. They might wear fake uniforms or carry fake badges, but they would be found out quickly.  
  
Sodium-vapor lights lit the concrete sides of Building 19 in yellow-green light. Windblown dirt and leaves were across the parking lots, and most of the narrow windows were boarded. Industrial barbed-wire fencing wrapped across the drives and "Keep Away" signs were spaced at intervals along it. The lone pick-up truck of a night guard or caretaker was parked in front.  
  
The vans turned on to a rutted side road. They detoured around the facility, around more low buildings, a long-abandoned rail spur, a yard with rusting shipping containers padlocked and abandoned. The illusion was not so good on the far side. The gate had a gleaming new electronic latch and several cars and vans with low-numbered plates were parked within.   
  
They put a thin copse of poisoned trees between them and Building 19. The small woman left immediately, vanishing almost instantly into the darkness. Sampai gave terse orders, with Kosuke close by murmuring advice. The boy's broad brow was furrowed and he was obviously unhappy to be there. Equally obvious, Kosuke was unhappy he was there.  
  
"Sonoda, Ohtomo; you're with us," Sampai said. "We'll move out the moment Ikeda signals." He looked at the walkie-talkie in his hands. "The rest of you know what to do."  
  
"And you're staying here," Lita told Amy. Firmly.   
  
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The first sound to split the quiet was the thermite grenade Ikeda had chucked into the transformer shed. It hissed and burned and sent out a shivering white light. Then a much louder sizzle eclipsed it in a sudden arc-light as the main power feeds to the building shorted out.  
  
Lita was impressed. Yakuza were as a rule better at intimidation and leg-breaking, not at coordinated military action. She glanced again at the two bosozuku. This had to be Kosuke's guidance. She wondered again what his history was.  
  
The security inside was alert enough. Two ran out almost immediately. There was a sharp crack from the treeline and one fell, clutching his leg. This was going to be bloody: once again Lita was glad Amy was back by the vans.  
  
The yakuza moved into the fray. Their job was to engage the security and keep them occupied. The young people, and the two soldiers assigned to them, would be going in to the building.  
  
"Time," Lita said. She left the cover of the trees and started a broken run towards the low gray building. Already other yakuza were within. The gate had fallen to another of Ikeda's thermite grenades. Another yakuza moved among the parked government cars with a short knife, gleefully spiking tires.  
  
Lita shouldered her way through the door. She found she was on a short, low mezzanine looking over a loading dock. The obvious way deeper within was straight ahead. Straight ahead she went, at a jog, the god gun held across her chest.  
  
A security man popped out of a doorway. Lita swung at him with the god gun and pushed past. Kosuke and Sampai would take care of him. She saw the elevator bank and the big open freight elevators. Ignored them to tackle the stairwell. Greg would be held on one of the lower floors.  
  
They clattered down the long concrete stairwell, hands barely brushing at the steel safety rails. Emergency lights flickered; many weren't on at all. Kosuke had a pencil flashlight that leapt unerringly to whatever Lita needed to see next. She kept her hands on the gun and kept going.  
  
She pushed open the door at the bottom of the stair and two guards fell on her. Lita was knocked flat. Before she could flip over a heavy body landed full-length on her. The gun, and her hands, were trapped under her.  
  
Sampai bellowed and swung on something behind her. More feet were clattering and more men had arrived. Not guards; the shoes she heard were hard-soled, dress shoes that would go with business suits and young government types. A pistol cracked from one of the suits. Sonoda shouted and clapped a hand on a wound.  
  
The man pinning her had started wrenching at her elbows. It seemed he wanted to pull her arms behind her back. Lita let him have his fun, and focused on standing up. She heard a surprised grunt as she made her feet. Then she ran backwards into the wall. The man's head made a satisfying thud as it hit. His hands went lax.  
  
Sampai was doing his best to make a good account of himself but it looked to Lita like he was pulling his punches, afraid of inflicting real damage. She kicked the back of the man's knees then kicked his head as he fell.  
  
"Deal with them!" she ordered the two yakuza. Then she and the two boys were heading for the large armored door that dominated the end of the corridor.  
  
Kosuke got out a lock pick. Lita shouldered him back and triggered the gun. Red needled out and the door flamed. With steel smoke sifting out in an acrid cloud the heavy door swung ajar.  
  
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As far as Amy was concerned, the battle was a wild confusion. She was safe by the vans. She watched with infrared binoculars that could pierce the darkness, with walkie-talkie and scanner beside her. She was hooked in, focused, like an armchair general with his maps and charts following the battle from afar. And she hadn't the faintest idea what was going on.  
  
It was painfully obvious that she wasn't a warrior type. Somewhere out there in the darkness Lita was charging around, half-winded, mostly blind, but in all her limited vision more alert to the needs of the fight at hand then Amy could ever be.  
  
She sighed. She didn't like finding there was something she didn't do well.   
  
She wondered if the tanks were doing any good. With any luck they had added to the confusion. They were certain to make the escape easier. Crawling around the area in completely random patterns were twenty toy tanks. Duct-taped to each was a cheap radio transmitter, and each was now loudly pretending to be the gun that Lita carried.  
  
Amy checked her watch. Only six minutes. They had at least twenty before local cops and fire department showed up. They would show up in force, though, in full hazmat gear; in a place crawling with reactors and nuclear experiments the emergency services liked to respond fast and strong.  
  
A car. Someone had responded already. The vans were hidden in the brush, at least. Amy turned the binoculars that way. A very narrow, flexible man snaked out of the car. He was dressed in a black suit with a black shirt and his face was pale with stretched-looking skin. He moved like the woman with the thermite, like the young bosozuku Kosuke, like Lita. Like a well-trained martial artist.  
  
Amy shivered. In his hand was a small box with a loop antennae. He turned around in a slow circle then zeroed in on the nearest signal. One slender hand snaked into his coat to briefly lift a weapon in an instinctive movement, making sure it moved freely in it's holster.  
  
There was a tiny sound not far away. A little electric motor, cheesy plastic gears. "Oh, no," Amy murmured. One of the toy tanks was heading in her direction. "Shoo," she whispered hopefully. It kept coming, its little random mechanism picking exactly the wrong direction.  
  
The pale man with the radio direction finder walked deliberately. Following the signal. Heading towards her.  
  
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It was the three of them now. Lita held the god gun with an extra grimness. Sampai and Kosuke were supporting Greg between them. The boy was only semi-conscious. That was probably a good thing.   
  
She wasn't thinking real hard about what they had found, and how he had looked when they found him. But she had used the gun quite a bit before they had left that cold steel room in the bowels of this "abandoned" facility. And she wished some of the doctors who had tended him were in her sights now.  
  
Her walkie-talkie clicked three times. "No!" Lita said aloud. "It's Amy. Someone must have spotted her!"  
  
They were still deep in the building. Far too deep. They didn't know how many goons were still between them and the entrance. "I have to stay with Sampai," Kosuke said.  
  
"I know." Lita's face twisted. "You're his bodyguard, Kosuke. He's the son of the Oyabun."  
  
Kosuke only nodded.  
  
"I owe the Oyabun. But Amy...Amy is my first responsibility."  
  
"I understand," Kosuke said quickly. "Don't worry about it. Go!"  
  
Lita went.   
  
She took the stairs two at a time. Her breath was coming in gasps and her chest was burning by the time she made it to the loading dock. Now it was across the open space in the rear of the building. She plunged into the trees and ran blindly, depending on luck more than sense of direction.  
  
At last she reached her friend. Her weapon snapped up. Her breath echoed in her ears and her vision was swimming. The fingers that held the god gun were numb from oxygen deprivation.  
  
The pale, dangerous-looking man in black was still, gun pressed into Amy's temple.  
  
Lita kept going. She didn't stop, she didn't join his offer of a Mexican standoff -- she kept running until they slammed together, all three of them, in a tangle of arms and legs and weaponry.  
  
Lita saw a pale face floating before her and started punching. She was shaking. It seemed a very long time before slim hands pulled at her and a soft voice was speaking with an odd precision in her ear.  
  
"Stop it, Lita! He's down. Stop hitting him!"  
  
Lita let herself be convinced. She let her friend guide her up, then to a seat in the open door of one of the vans. "We found Greg," she got out between panting breaths. "The bosozuku are bringing him out. They hurt him, Amy. They hurt him."  
  
"It's all right, Lita. You did it. You rescued him."  
  
"You found him, Amy. I'm no good at detective work. All I do well is hit things."  
  
"Lita Kino!" And Amy took her face in both hands, turned Lita to face her. "Come off it, friend. You're a genuine hero. Now pull yourself together and let's finish what we started."  
  
"O..okay," Lita said. She took a deep breath. Suddenly smiled. "We kicked butt, didn't we?" She jumped back to her feet. "First step," she said. She strode to the man in black. "You!" she said.  
  
"Urr?" The man was still a little dazed. Around them, the yakuza were returning to the vans. Some had been injured. None were missing.  
  
"Take a message," Lita said. "Tell Department Six it's hands off from now on. We're running the show now."   
  
When she came back to the van the bosozuku were there and Amy was holding Greg close.  
  
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"Stop here," Greg whispered. He was conscious.  
  
"Wha...?" They were barely within the outskirts of Tokyo; still far outside the area circumscribed by the Yammanote Loop.  
  
"Stop the van," Greg said weakly. "You have to let me off."  
  
"Nothing doing," Lita said promptly.  
  
"You don't understand," Greg gasped. He levered himself up, sitting up despite his injuries. He was pale and shivering, still, but determination burned in his eyes. He reached out and took Amy's hand between his. "You did it. Both of you," he said. "You made it this far. Now you have to finish it."  
  
"Are you crazy?" Lita blurted out. "You can't even stand!"  
  
"I can stand long enough," Greg said. "Zoicite is waiting."  
  
"No!" Both girls leapt to their feet. The van lurched then, and Amy fell back against one of the yakuza. Lita grabbed at a seat. "What makes you think we'll turn you over to her!"  
  
Greg tapped his chest. "This will kill me if you don't," he said.  
  
"Greg?" Amy gasped.  
  
"The seventh Rainbow Crystal. I'm the last of the crystal carriers." Greg formed a small smile. "I think that's where my visions came from." His smile dropped. "I expected to die back there."  
  
"I understand," Amy said in sympathy.  
  
"That's not what I meant! I mean all the probable timelines ended for me there. I thought...I thought it was better that way. I'd never become that monster. I'd never hurt you, Amy, or you." He sat up fully. His feet were on the floor.   
  
"Death is the only end of hope," Amy said softly.  
  
"Yes," he said as softly. "I realized that when I saw you there...when you and your friends had gotten me out of that place alive. Dying ends all options. While I am alive, there is still a chance. Amy, Lita," his voice took on new strength, "the two of you broke the odds. You made the impossible possible.  
  
Lita shrugged. "Long odds are better than none." She signaled. The van began to slow.  
  
"Lita! What are you doing?"  
  
"This is the only safe way it can happen. I've seen it, Amy. If Zoicyte reaches me within the city you will die. At her hands, or at mine!"  
  
"I..can't...I won't..!" She clenched her hands. She was shaking.  
  
"I know," Greg said wryly. "There's no time. You don't know how you feel about me. There's no time for you to figure out your feelings, no time to share them. Amy, I've heard you say all the words you need to. In a hundred alternate timelines I wake earlier, or the van stops later. You are more certain, or you hate me, or we are already..." He stopped himself. Managed to force a grin. "Annoying, isn't it?"  
  
The convoy came to a halt. Everyone got out. The city was cold and dark about them, bleak in concrete and stucco. In silence the yakuza formed a semi-circle, a solemn salute to the wan boy in his bloody bandages as we walked slowly away from them. Lita held Amy tightly to her. "While there is life, there is hope," she hissed in Amy's ear. "Remember that!"  
  
Greg turned at the edge of darkness. "With the last Rainbow Crystal recovered the Silver Imperium Crystal is ready to emerge. You've already beaten the odds," he said then. "The Moon Princess will be found. She will face Queen Beryl. IBut it doesn't have to end as it did the last time."/I  
  
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Next -- the next episode takes place on top of the Tokyo Tower and Sailor Moon fans know what THAT means. Tuxedo unmasked! The Silver Imperium Crystal found! Lita goes mano-a-mano with Zoicite! Don't miss our next episode: "334 Meters Over Tokyo"....be there and I'll show you!  
  
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Scribbler's Notes -- The Special Edition:  
  
I'm trying an experiment here, and putting in some footnotes regarding the research that went into this chapter. Readers will agree it might have been better to put all the research here -- and leave it out of the story!  
  
Lita's Night Ride: All the data on the Ninja came from Kawasaki's own web site. I have friends who have told me about high-speed lay-downs, but I've never ridden myself. I don't even know where the clutch is!  
  
I also played fast-and-loose with Tokyo geography, and the time of day. Somehow Lita was able to go from an early-evening ambiance to a late-night ambiance and back to a mid-evening ambiance all in the space of three scenes.  
  
Right-Wing Politics: Everything mentioned in the speech is from the period; the Kobe earthquake, the Aum Shinryo subway gas attack, even the detail about Saddam Hussein booting UN inspectors, or the Tom Clancy film showing at the local theater. The stuff about Korea came mostly from a recent Time article, but the reactor project, and the incident in which Japanese dignitaries cried openly while making apologies for Japan's wartime treatment of Korean nationals, were mentioned in many other places as well. However, I do not think these things would have been said in the manner I described within the context I described. Only in the most general terms was that a description of a right-wing stump speech; in detail it was almost certainly inaccurate. Two things, however; those black sound trucks are a fixture of Japanese politics, and the ties between yakuza and right-wing are well known.  
  
The original manga was written at the height of the "bubble economy" when Japan was at the top of the world and the future looked bright. By the time the series aired (in 1991) the bubble had collapsed and the market was plummeting. I have chosen to set my tale in 1995; the date of the American dub release. By that date Japan is deep in recession, the Berlin Wall is down, and wars and ethnic conflicts have broken out across the globe. Even "Kimpachi Sensei" (the long-running "I love teacher" TV show) has dealt with gang activity in the classroom and knife attacks on teachers. It is a darker, crueler world I describe, with the Negaverse on the verge of victory and the need for the hope and heroism of a Sailor Moon never greater.  
  
The Akihabara: Description was based almost entirely on what I observed myself on a September evening in 2001. I bought a minidisc recorder in the arcade there. And I haggled.  
  
Geek Mythology: The little contest Amy gets into was "dumbed down" a bit for the general reader. I spent two oddly enjoyable evenings browsing dates for such things as battery technology and laptop models. You have to keep in mind that this scene takes place in early 1995; the "Pentium Pro" has yet to reach the market in significant numbers, and the FDIV bug is so well known it reached the Wall Street Journal. Intel's handling of the problem lost them the trust of many people -- and the techie community had a field day with "Pentium math" jokes.  
  
1995 was labeled by many as the "Year of the Internet." Over a few short years there was an explosion of computer use; the introduction of the Power PC and the Pentium, of Windows 95 and of Linux, of the Netscape browser and java, of laptops with the power of desktops, of computer games like Command and Conquer and Quake. If I had left the story in 1991, Amy would be running on DOS and Melvin would have to download his jokes from a BBS. Pity, though; Amy would have made a good "Phone Phreak."  
  
By the way, the three geeks were named after the "Lum fan club" in Urusai Yatsura -- except that I made up the descriptions first so "Pama" (pomade) became merely "Heya" ("Hair" in katakana).  
  
Working it Out: Almost entirely based on the painful recovery I went through after being shot in the shoulder. Also a friend of mine broke his leg in six places and was in a Wagner frame for months.  
  
This may not be the place, but much of Amy's medical and psychiatric history came out of those experiences. The technical details are mostly from a little red book called "Current Therapy of Trauma-2." I have compressed her recovery time greatly...although she has spent a half-dozen episodes in a wheelchair, in story time less than six weeks have passed.  
  
Spies Like Us: I've been in that waterfront park. I took a picture of that scaled-down Statue of Liberty. I can't quite point to it on a map, but it's somewhere between the Maritime Museum and O-daiba, in Rinkai Fukoshodin out in the middle of Tokyo Bay. There's actually a scene in the first "You're Under Arrest!" that takes place in that area, too.  
  
If you don't recognize "Cigarette-smoking man," you are not paying attention. If you made it that far, though, you might also realize Greg is "Chess-Playing Boy." By the way, I've always thought of Yamamura as looking a bit like the older Ken Takakura (he was in the Ridley-Scott "Black Rain," among many others.) But seedier, with a lot more of the detective that haunts the corners of the "Patlabor" movies.  
  
Greg-O-Vision: You really don't want to hear me explain Chaos theory. The old butterfly/thunderstorm analogy has been used before, however. Few of the people who have admired those wonderful "fractal" patterns see them as a mathematician sees them; on one side of that twisting line is simple math that resolves to rational numbers. On the other side, "Here there be Monsters."   
  
But, really, the idea of Greg living in multiple shifting visions is pulled directly from the experiences of Paul Maud'dib and his descendants in Frank Herbert's marvelous "Dune" novels.  
  
Amy the Hacker: A complete and utter fake from start to finish. I don't know a DNS from the INS. That said, "god is root" is a frequent quote around UNIX people -- and shows up far too often as the ID of the local sysadmin. "whoami" is the only UNIX command I know...is used to figure out your current log-in name so you can try to remember what permissions you currently have.  
  
Jarod: I have no intentions of bringing Jarod back again. He was just cute to use for this episode, as a sort of coda to his previous appearance. I was never a great fan of the TV show "The Pretender," but he did make an intriguing walk-on.  
  
Nuke City: It exists, and roughly how I described it; the many reactors, the safety issues, some street names. After that everything is made up, mostly from my own hazy memories of far too many Army posts and a few late-night rambles on the wrong side of security fences.  
  
The thin snaky martial artist is based on a guy from some of the great Hong Kong action movies. I'm sorry I don't have his name. The comedy routine of the weapon coming back at Amy is an old one...I was thinking in particular of the bit with the toy cannon in one of the Buster Keaton films.  
  
Do I really have to mention that all those yakuza are named for manga artists? Ken'ichi Sonoda (Gunsmith Cats), Katsuhiro Ohtomo (Akira) and Riyoko Ikeda (creator of The Rose of Versailles, known to the fans as "Beru-bara.") Kosuke and Sampai got their names partly to hint at the Kohai/Sempai relationship between them...except that the subservient bodyguard is more like a teacher to the gang-leader's son.  
  
Okay...the streets were named for Niels Bohr, who pioneered the energy-level model of the atom, Wolfgang Pauli, of the "Pauli exclusion principle" in quantum mechanics, and Robert J. Oppenheimer, father of the H-bomb. They are there because that is the hidden real threat in this episode; not the Negaverse, but the dangers of technology, especially in government hands -- characterized in this episode by the nuke.  
  
The God Gun: Back when I was a young sergeant I was sent to the world's biggest game of Lazer Tag, run by the US Army. They got little lasers on every weapon. You need to fire blanks just to trigger a single blink, and the things are coded so you could fire a rifle all day at a tank and never make it go "beep."  
  
They had referees; they called them Evaluators. They'd go strolling around with a special flashlight. This was no blinking laser...this was a big broad flashlight beam of death. It didn't matter if you were a soldier a tank or a helicopter; they shine that light on you, and your Lazer Tag -- sorry, "MILES" gear -- goes off. The Evaluators called it ...The God Gun. 


	18. 333 Meters Over Tokyo

Scribbler's Note:  
  
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I'm going to try to reverse the trend of spending more and more time trying to be meticulous  
  
about every detail. At the rate I was going, we'd be IN the Silver Millennium before I  
  
finished the story! So please bear with me as I try to cut a few corners and get the words out  
  
on paper while some of us are still young. And please do not hesitate to give me feedback for  
  
whatever reason, good or bad.  
  
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Serena stopped and turned just outside the school. She was in full sunlight, the light bright  
  
on her golden hair. "You coming?" she asked with a smile..  
  
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Lita felt herself hanging back. "No," she said. "I have things to do.".  
  
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"Later, maybe?" Serena asked. She was so light-hearted today, so happy, it was almost painful  
  
to watch. Summer was here, vacation in only two more weeks, and it seemed as if everything was  
  
in bloom under a cloudless blue sky. The colors of Serena's school uniform were as precise as  
  
a cartoon in the bright summer light, from the process blue of her pleated skirt to the pure  
  
white of her blouse..  
  
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"I have things to do," Lita said again, but to herself this time. She watched the blond girl  
  
as she was joined by a cluster of friends, and as they reached the iron gate of the school and  
  
headed south towards the Crowd Arcade. "And things to think about," Lita added softly. She  
  
turned towards a smaller gate in the shadow of the building and headed that way..  
  
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It rises benignly over the center of Tokyo, a grace note to the skyline of Minato-ku; taller  
  
than its French inspiration but hardly half the weight, a gossamer of steel webbing. In the  
  
night it glows delicately in the light of a hundred floodlights, orange in the winter, and as  
  
punctual as a schoolgirl changing uniform to a crystal white for the warmer months..  
  
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It is only when you get closer, get right up to the arches of the legs and the five-story  
  
building nestled between its feet that you begin to feel its size and weight. It stretches up  
  
above your head like the curving face of a dam, a quarter mile tall, a complex mass of iron  
  
girders and cables and attachments. The eye is lost in all that detail, of criss-cross  
  
webbings themselves cross-braced and intersected with a thousand more rectangles of  
  
orange-painted steel..  
  
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It has become part of the background to the locals. A signature of the skyline, like Tower  
  
Bridge or the Statue of Liberty. Nobody but tourists go there. It had been built in 1958 as a  
  
symbol that Japan had recovered from the war and was on her way to becoming an economic  
  
superpower. In three days, however, it will become a different kind of symbol -- a symbol of  
  
something new and strange and terrible..  
  
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SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS.  
  
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Episode Eighteen : 333 Meters Over Tokyo.  
  
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"Hiya Darien," Andrew waved as he entered the Crown Arcade. "Serena's already here.".  
  
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Just like that. In some mysterious female way Serena had become "his girl." Or he had become  
  
"her guy." Darien wasn't sure. Since that strange day in the English Garden things had  
  
changed completely between them..  
  
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Sure enough, the little blond girl was running up to him, those extraordinary pigtails bouncing  
  
with every step. "Darien!" she cried in delight..  
  
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"Hi there, meatball head," he retorted. He was a little disconcerted when she giggled in  
  
pleasure. Apparently his one-time insult had turned into an endearment..  
  
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"Hello, Andrew," she said as she noticed him in turn..  
  
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"Hello Serena," Andrew said, just as polite. There was a different vibe there and Darien had  
  
trouble picking it up. Of course, he realized after a moment. She's "with me," and thus it's  
  
hand's off. No more of the flirting she usually does around Andrew. And the same rule for him  
  
in turn..  
  
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Darien felt his head hurting. This was all so crazy! In Serena's mind, he and Andrew were  
  
both in competition for her -- with Darien the present lead. What was even stranger, though,  
  
was that he kind of liked it..  
  
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Serena led him to a table by the window. As scrupulously as Andrew, her friends giggled and  
  
went elsewhere, although he could feel all those feminine eyes on him and every move he made.   
  
He ordered, somehow, something. In a little a couple of sundaes arrived. He only picked at  
  
his, too distracted, or bemused, by Serena's ability to cut through some giant mass of  
  
ice-cream and chocolate, making it vanish like a conjurer's rabbit..  
  
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He realized after a while that he had relaxed. He liked watching Serena. He liked being let  
  
in, allowed to see some of her life and share some of her secrets. In part that was because,  
  
as an orphan, he had had so little of a family or and ordinary home to call his own. In a way,  
  
being with Serena was a way of sharing a little of that normal life he was so often an outsider  
  
to..  
  
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But in greater part was because he liked her. That strange and terrible passion that had  
  
filled him the first few times he had been close to her was still there in the shadows  
  
somewhere, but its hold and its terror had ebbed quite a bit. He could hold those stronger  
  
feelings away now, putting them aside until times were different. For now he was able to watch  
  
Serena, and be near her, and contain a simpler joy in her presence..  
  
.  
  
And she was, as Andrew had said, "good people." There was no denying that she was a terrible  
  
clutz and an indifferent student. But as he learned to open his eyes and actually look at her,  
  
he could also see the strengths of her passion and conviction, her strong sense of loyalty and  
  
a determination to do what had to be done. He could not forget how she had stood up to  
  
Nephrite's creature when they were trapped in that pocket universe. Or how she had protected  
  
her friend Molly when Gem Cutter attacked at Osa-P..  
  
.  
  
He sighed. And that led him to an essential problem. She did not know he was Tuxedo Mask.   
  
There was good reason why he kept his alter-ego a secret from even his closest friend, Andrew.   
  
He didn't know what that masked man was, or where he had come from. He didn't know what Tux's  
  
purpose or intentions were. And most importantly, he did not know where he would be standing  
  
when the mists of amnesia finally cleared. Would he find himself a champion, still? Or would  
  
his memory show him that he was as much as monster as these things he had faced?.  
  
.  
  
The crystals. The crystals were the key. He had but two, now. Zoicite must have the others.   
  
If he could somehow get his hands on all of them, perhaps then he would find the path to the  
  
Princess and his missing memories. Perhaps then he would know who he really was..  
  
.  
  
"Darien? You day-dreaming?" Serena asked. She spoke lightly, but he could see a serious  
  
light of concern touching her eyes..  
  
.  
  
"Just a little," he said lightly as he could. "Maybe I need to get more sleep.".  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
"So THEN what did he say?" Molly plucked at her sleeve, the giggles bubbling over again..  
  
.  
  
"Oh, he didn't say anything," Serena said, "just looked at me with those dark eyes. For a  
  
moment he was so serious, and I felt like he could look right into me. And then, and  
  
then....!".  
  
.  
  
"And then...?".  
  
.  
  
"He sighed!".  
  
.  
  
Both girls threw themselves back into Serena's bed, the giggles overtaking them. Serena  
  
bounced right back up, grabbed a pillow, and squeezed it to her chest..  
  
.  
  
Molly bounced onto her front, chin cupped in her hands. "That sounds SO romantic," she sighed..  
  
.  
  
"Yeah!" Serena returned the sigh and raised it a nickel. It had been so nice, so romantic,  
  
so....scary. She had approached this first date tremulous and eager and excited and scared.   
  
Scared she might frighten him away with too much intensity, frighten him back into that shell,  
  
behind that uncaring mask he wore for others to see. And scared, too, of the possibilities  
  
before her; of romance, of passions more adult than she was ready for, of commitment to come.   
  
Being back here, in her warm room, with her long-time friend, was like making it back to land  
  
after a solo flight, and she was for now glad to be back on solid ground..  
  
.  
  
"When are you going to see him again?" Molly asked after a bit..  
  
.  
  
"This weekend," Serena said dreamily. "I told him we were going to the movies. What do you  
  
think we should see?".  
  
.  
  
"Something romantic," Molly said, putting so much stress on the last word it sounded almost  
  
dark..  
  
.  
  
"But I wanted to see 'Babe' again!" Serena mock-wailed..  
  
.  
  
Molly popped upright, suddenly dead serious. "Take him to Casablanca," she said. "There's a  
  
showing at that art house across from Zoijorushi.".  
  
.  
  
"I don't know," Serena said slowly. "That's not the best part of town. Of course, I'd feel  
  
safe there if I'm with DARIEN, but...".  
  
.  
  
Molly saw through her objections. "You have to decide, Serena. You have to decide how much he  
  
means to you. You need to make up your mind if you really want to win him.".  
  
.  
  
And then she was quiet, very quiet. It took a few minutes for Serena to notice. She didn't  
  
say anything when she did. She knew Molly had something on her mind. It hurt that Molly  
  
hadn't shared it with her, but she'd trusted her friend this far. Molly would tell her, in  
  
time. And maybe sooner than later. By the sound of this silence, she seemed to have just made  
  
up her mind about something..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
First Joe. Then Tadahiko. Then Amy's friend Greg..  
  
.  
  
Lita was walking, hands deep in the pockets of her jeans, black leather jacket zipped up.   
  
There were few street lights in this part of town, and the smell of Tokyo Bay was more rank and  
  
wild than it ever dared to be nearer the Ginza..  
  
.  
  
There had been others earlier, of course. But for Lita it had begun with Joe. One encounter,  
  
in a night like this one, in a poor and dirty industrial neighborhood not far from where she  
  
was now, and her life had changed. Lita had no illusion that her life had been easy before.   
  
Orphaned as a young girl, living alone in a house that used to hold family. Already outcast  
  
and picked upon because of her size, isolated even more when she gained the skill and  
  
confidence to fight back..  
  
.  
  
She'd had a goal. To become a great cook, and to open her own restaurant in Tokyo. The goal  
  
seemed a little nebulous, now. The world and its ways seemed so solid now, it was hard to  
  
realize the essential fragility. But the Negaverse was coming. Right now it was a private  
  
war, something that could be kept so secret that the ordinary business of shopkeepers and  
  
housewives, bankers and mechanics could go on. But unless she found some way of shifting the  
  
odds it wasn't going to stay that way. And whatever else happened, she could not be free until  
  
this thing was settled..  
  
.  
  
She was "makoto." She had the purity of motive that allowed Yoshitsune to fight on through  
  
betrayal and abandonment. That allowed the samurai who fought against the Meiji Restoration  
  
and the industrialization of Japan to stake their lives against impossible odds. But that did  
  
not prevent her from knowing full well how desperate this fight was....how little hope they had  
  
of winning..  
  
.  
  
"Lita.".  
  
.  
  
"You!" Lita knew it would be Kosuke. She turned on him, angrily. "Do you have me bugged or  
  
something? How do you always know where I am?".  
  
.  
  
"Look around," Kosuke said instead. Lita looked. She was at the edge of where the fish market  
  
would be in the morning. Many shops were still open, amber light spilling from under the low  
  
noren curtains. People were around, working-class people slowly relaxing from the hard labor  
  
of their day. "This is where the gumi works," Kosuke said. "We aren't about uptown and office  
  
buildings. We are about vegetable markets and radiator repair. These are our people.".  
  
.  
  
Lita looked again. She saw, now, the gambler slipping through a curtained door into a dark and  
  
smoky interior. The tattoo on the shoulder of a burly worker adjusting his woolen belly-band  
  
after standing up. The slight nod one noodle stand owner gave Kosuke as they passed..  
  
.  
  
"You get noticed, Lita." Kosuke shrugged. "People know about you. People mention when  
  
they've seen you about. It isn't hard for the gumi to know where you are.".  
  
.  
  
Lita fumed. She thought about it, got a little more angry, then stopped dead in her tracks.   
  
"I don't like it!" she said. She thought a little more, and got even more angry. "I am  
  
getting really tired," she said, "of everyone knowing more about what I'm doing than I do!".  
  
.  
  
The gumi, that Detective fellow, even Amy, bless her. They all seemed to find Lita so  
  
wonderfully predictable. And Lita was sick and tired of it..  
  
.  
  
"Okay, chew on this, Mr. young yakuza," she said at last. "The next scrape I'm getting into,  
  
you are NOT invited. I'll handle my own problems thank you very much!".  
  
.  
  
"I'm sorry, Lita," Kosuke said quickly. "I'm sorry.".  
  
.  
  
Lita was quiet for a while. "So am I. But I still mean it." She let the silence last longer,  
  
until it was a different sort of silence; not an angry silence any more but slowly coming back  
  
to the companionable silence between friends. She started walking again, fitting her pace her  
  
his. "So," she said. "Where's your friend Sampai? I thought as his bodyguard you'd want him  
  
near.".  
  
.  
  
Kosuke didn't say anything for a while. He seemed to be searching for words. "He is safer  
  
where he is," Kosuke said at last. It wasn't enough, and he had to say the rest of it. "It  
  
isn't always safe around you, Lita.".  
  
.  
  
She nodded. It hurt, but she nodded. Damn Amy, and damn Kosuke too. They'd taught her to  
  
think. To worry about consequences. To fear for the future..  
  
.  
  
Kosuke caught her change of mood instantly. He moved her in a different direction without  
  
really seeming to guide her at all. When Lita saw the tiny Korean place right by a scrawny  
  
estuary she knew immediately this was Kosuke's goal. Even from a hundred meters away there was  
  
something warm and welcoming about it, the look of a bus shelter during a cold February rain..  
  
.  
  
They sat outside. Lita let Kosuke order. She was a little chagrined to find much of it was  
  
unfamiliar to her. All this time studying French cuisine and there's so much I don't know much  
  
closer to home, she thought. She noticed how much the wiry little gang-member fit in around  
  
this area. And how much she, in her new jacket and nice shoes, not to mention her height, did  
  
not. No wonder she'd been mentioned to the gumi!.  
  
.  
  
It was something else Lita didn't think about often. Having money, that is. She was more  
  
aware than most of her schoolmates were. Handling the household expenses herself did that.   
  
Juuban Junior High was a GOOD school. The students there were well off enough not to know they  
  
were well off. In an area like this, she became aware of a different Japan. Not just a  
  
different scale of expenses, but a different way of life; where the safety net was very thin  
  
and financial emergencies could be a life-and-death manner. It humbled her, realizing that.   
  
There were worse things than growing up without parents..  
  
.  
  
And where were Kosuke's folks? There was something about him, like a radar shared between like  
  
souls, that told her he did not have parents here. There was in his voice and attitude when he  
  
spoke of the gumi that told her of a combination of professional loyalty and a kind of longing  
  
that made a substitute family out of them. She watched him, quietly, as they ate. He was  
  
private about his background, quiet enough that she was willing to let him share in his own  
  
time and place..  
  
.  
  
It was an odd time of peace. A peace, perhaps, like that which Amy had found in the English  
  
Garden in the blooming of the roses. Their little shop was an oasis of light and warmth, of  
  
cleanliness and the smells of good food. Time passed in this oasis without being remarked.   
  
Time passed, and slowly, the task they faced began to be seen in a different light..  
  
.  
  
"They attack, we try to stop them," Lita said. Kosuke merely nodded. They understood each  
  
other well; Lita was merely speaking aloud to reason something out. "We try, sometimes we win,  
  
sometimes not, but people still get hurt. They get hurt in ways we can't heal." Like Greg,  
  
changed into a creature of nightmare..  
  
.  
  
"We are fighting a defensive battle," Kosuke mumbled around a mouthful of shrimp..  
  
.  
  
"So we change the paradigm.".  
  
.  
  
Kosuke raised his eyebrows. For him, this was like jumping to his feet and bellowing with  
  
laughter..  
  
.  
  
Lita scowled. "I've been hanging around Amy a lot, okay?" she said. "Anyhow, we change it.   
  
Let's not react to them, let's act." At that moment she reached into her pocket. "Here," she  
  
said. The thing sparkled in the light, too red for the light, too different to not be out of  
  
place here, or anywhere on Earth. "The Rainbow Crystal Joe carried. Maybe it can be a  
  
bargaining chip.".  
  
.  
  
She stood, then. Asked to use the phone. Spoke for a couple of minutes; the hour was not as  
  
late as it could be and someone was still in the offices..  
  
.  
  
"And?" Kosuke did not have to say more..  
  
.  
  
"Placed an add in the Asahi Shimbun. I'm calling Zoicite out.".  
  
.  
  
"You challenged her.".  
  
.  
  
"Un huh. Her and me. The crystals as prize.".  
  
.  
  
Kosuke nodded once, sharply. It was his way of saying, that he admired her makoto, even as he  
  
knew she was tempting death to take this course..  
  
.  
  
They returned to eating, perhaps savoring the food a little more in knowledge that the die was  
  
cast. They could hear a radio, now. A request show, it seemed. Some of the music was  
  
romantic but much was upbeat..  
  
.  
  
Lita emptied her tea, stood again. The owner and sole cook handed her the phone a second time.  
  
This time everyone could hear the result..  
  
.  
  
"This is Lita Kino. I'd like to dedicate a song to General Zoicite of the Negaverse.".  
  
.  
  
"General Who of the Which?".  
  
.  
  
"You got it. To General Zoicite of the Negaverse, I'd like to dedicate 'The Freaks Come Out at  
  
Night,' by Whodini.".  
  
.  
  
"That," Kosuke said, almost to himself, "Is gonna make Zoicite real mad.".  
  
.  
  
"Wait," Lita said. "I changed my mind. How about the 'Another One Bites the Dust'...by  
  
Queen!".  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
"This isn't very smart," Luna said to herself. She frowned. She wondered if it was a bad sign  
  
for a Guardian of the Moon Kingdom to talk to herself. Well, it wasn't as if her young charge  
  
actually listened. Luna had heard far too much about Serena's recent date. She was more than  
  
a little ambivalent about the whole thing. Back in the Moon Kingdom no-one would have raised  
  
an eye, but here on Earth they tended to wait a few more years before getting this serious..  
  
.  
  
She had thought about having a few more words with the girl. But then she had been distracted  
  
by one of those, what did they call them? Video games, that was it. There had been the usual  
  
intensely annoying, tweedly little tune issuing from it as Serena shot at monsters with some  
  
kind of ray gun. Luna suffered not only the grace of a cat's excellent hearing, but she also  
  
had perfect pitch and a good musical education. More than once she had been tempted to imitate  
  
the "beckoning cat" and cover ear with paw..  
  
.  
  
Except. Except this particular tune, on this particular game, most particularly did not  
  
belong. It had taken her the trip back to the Tsukino home and several hours more before the  
  
shoe dropped. It was the "Moonlight Dance." A court favorite, during the time of Queen  
  
Serenity, back at the Moon Kingdom!.  
  
.  
  
So now Luna was prowling back to the Crown Arcade. It was very late at night. All reasonable  
  
beings were probably asleep. As Luna prowled along she noticed another flyer up. This one  
  
looked like the "Lost Cat" notices but instead said "Lost Courage" and had a picture of  
  
Zoicite..  
  
.  
  
Lita's work again. She hadn't let up. The Negaverse General must be writhing by now. Lita  
  
had kept up a barrage of advertisements, circulars, radio call-ins -- every way she could to  
  
insult Zoicite, call her a coward, dare her to come out and fight. It was an, um, novel  
  
approach. Luna thought it was rather more likely to get the girl killed. Pissing off someone  
  
powerful enough to take on some of the best warriors in the Moon Kingdom was not listed in the  
  
Guardian's instruction manual as A Smart Thing..  
  
.  
  
Nor was sneaking into buildings late at night. Luna had found a window that was enough ajar to  
  
do the trick. On the other side was the game room itself. The machines were humming quietly  
  
to themselves, those that had been left on. Some flickered slowly with lists of high scores  
  
like old warriors dreaming of past conquests. The Sailor V game was one of those still on..  
  
.  
  
Luna leapt to another console and watched. The Sailor V game cycled through it's set displays.  
  
When it reached the splash screen a fragment of "Moonlight Dance" played again. Listening to  
  
it, even in this feeble, tweedly, form, was enough to bring her back for a moment to the Moon  
  
Kingdom. In emotion only, however. Hard facts about that life were maddenly hard to pin down..  
  
.  
  
In sudden impulse Luna jumped down, ran across and leapt up to the Sailor V machine. And,  
  
while the music was still playing, she placed her paw on the screen..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
"I'm gonna kill that girl!".  
  
.  
  
"Tsukino?" Ishiguro asked politely. Haruna had mentioned her problem student before. Many  
  
times..  
  
.  
  
The pretty, but often scowling, teacher finished a last piece of paperwork and slammed her desk  
  
closed. Like all teachers everywhere, she had to work into the night to finish all the things  
  
she couldn't do while school was in session. And in Japan, that meant no overtime..  
  
.  
  
"And what did she do this time?" Ishiguro was just making conversation..  
  
.  
  
"It's that monster talk again," Haruna said. "There's more of them at it this time. I think  
  
they have half the school doing it.".  
  
.  
  
Ishiguro nodded. He taught lab and ran the computer center, but he'd certainly noticed the  
  
buzz around school..  
  
.  
  
"It's gotten so bad there are starting to be inquiries." She made the word sound capitalized.   
  
"I've had to speak with the Principal twice already!".  
  
.  
  
"Look at it this way. The exams are almost in, and then there's nothing left but the  
  
end-of-term bash.".  
  
.  
  
Haruna wasn't paying attention. She was looking out the window. "There's a giant woman in the  
  
sky," she said in a strange voice. "She's saying something.".  
  
.  
  
"Surrender, Dorothy?" It was all Ishiguro could think of..  
  
.  
  
"What!" the other teacher snapped. "No!" She turned again and propped the window open. Now  
  
they could both hear the mysterious voice..  
  
.  
  
"You want to die? I'll be happy to help. Bring your Rainbow Crystal to the Tower, at  
  
midnight.".  
  
.  
  
She laughed, then; a brittle crystalline laugh that went on and on..  
  
.  
  
Haruna slammed the window. "I'll bet that's Serena's fault, too!" she said..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
The thing was TALL. Lita watched the tower grow slowly as she approached it. The night was  
  
cloudy, the wind gusting wetly in something that was not quite mist nor drizzle. The pavement  
  
glistened, oils driven up by the water, and lights shimmered and flickered against the shifting  
  
winds. She could almost smell it, this great mass of steel and rivets, clad only by orange and  
  
white paint. The powerful floodlights punched through the haze but they began their march up  
  
the tower from a point far, far above where she stood. The great girders here at the base,  
  
that filled half her visual horizon, were black as night..  
  
.  
  
Lita was ready for this. As ready as she had ever been in her life. It was as if she'd been  
  
training her whole life for this fight. It was gonna be the toughest challenge she'd ever  
  
taken on. And at stake, a chance to reverse the string of Negaverse victories and start taking  
  
her world back from them..  
  
.  
  
She shrugged her shoulders back, settled the leather jacket more comfortably. She hadn't made  
  
any kind of preparation. She was certainly not going to tie on a hachimaki or something.   
  
Maybe, though, it was because she needed that blind luck that had seen her through previously.   
  
Getting garbed like a warrior was somehow making too big a deal of this fight, and making a big  
  
deal of it might make her luck fail..  
  
.  
  
The thing was very big. And very high. And she was going to have to go up there, into the  
  
night sky, to find a woman that wanted to kill her. Lita shivered, suddenly. It wasn't  
  
working. Her confidence wasn't enough any more. She was alone, far too alone, and she was  
  
going to fight alone, with no-one to know how well she fought or how.....  
  
.  
  
"How I died." She said it. She had to say it. She wasn't afraid of death, not really. But  
  
she did not want to be alone. The ache was in her, greater than it had ever been. That taste  
  
of friendship, of Amy and Serena and the others, only made it more obvious how alone she was  
  
now..  
  
.  
  
The came out of the shadows then, at this perfect moment..  
  
.  
  
"I don't want your help!" Lita barked out..  
  
.  
  
"You don't have a choice," Amy said. She was walking, but she pushed her wheelchair before  
  
her. Serena was beside her. She waited until she was within arm's reach of Lita before she  
  
spoke again. "I made that mistake," Amy said then. "I went out alone. I won't let you make  
  
the same mistake.".  
  
.  
  
"Amy..." Lita said. "Amy...!" she said. "Oh...all right then! I could use the company."   
  
Then she said softly, "I'm glad you guys came.".  
  
.  
  
"This is what we are here for," Amy said, her voice low and intense. "This is our job, all of  
  
us. We stick together or we have no chance at all.".  
  
.  
  
"And Serena?" Lita asked..  
  
.  
  
"Me too," the girl said. "This is IMPORTANT, Lita. I have to help you guys. I have to do the  
  
right thing.".  
  
.  
  
"Then I guess we are all in it together," Lita said. "All for one and all that. The three  
  
students, the three...what are we, anyway?".  
  
.  
  
"What were they called, the girls who protected the Princess?" Serena asked..  
  
.  
  
"The Sailor Scouts," Amy said. "At least that's what Luna said.".  
  
.  
  
"The Sailor Scouts, then. Until the real thing comes along." Lita put out her hand. Amy took  
  
it. Serena put hers on top..  
  
.  
  
"The Sailor Scouts!" they said together..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
EVERYTHING took so long. Picking out the clothes was worst of all. Molly had never really  
  
tried to dress up; what she had, besides school clothes, were mostly things her mother had  
  
helped her pick out. Basic jumpers and dresses, culottes, warm sweaters and sensible shoes.   
  
She thought hard about putting on something nice tonight. She thought about finding something  
  
a little more daring...maybe doing that old school uniform trick of tucking the top of the  
  
skirt under a belt to shorten the hemline. But that wouldn't be appropriate for her mission.   
  
She wasn't trying to seduce him or something. She just wanted to tell him, finally, just how  
  
she felt..  
  
.  
  
Then she worried about the weather, and went through all her wardrobe choices yet again. After  
  
that it was bus tickets (the school pass wouldn't help; Max's was out of zone). And money.   
  
And of course an umbrella. The hint of rain turned out to be a blessing in disguise. She  
  
ended up in white slacks, a sweater with a little nice lace-work at the collar, and a long  
  
raincoat. She thought she looked very mature, like a young lady lawyer or something..  
  
.  
  
Sneaking out had become such routine she didn't even think about it. Her thoughts so filled  
  
her that she didn't realize she had gotten on the bus until she had gotten out at her stop..  
  
.  
  
The Tiki Lounge looked closed but lights were on. Molly headed for the door..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
"Don't tell me you are actually serious about this!" Nephrite laughed at Zoicite. Which was  
  
maybe not the smartest thing to do right now, but she had been getting under his skin lately..  
  
.  
  
"I didn't say I was going to fight her. I said she was going to fight me, and I was going to  
  
kill her." Zoicite had recovered most of her good humor. There was still a roughness in her  
  
laugh, though, that showed just how angry the humans had made her with their pushing and  
  
insults. She couldn't deal with the idea that an "inferior" species was quite capable of  
  
calling her out. And was capable, even, of hurting her if she gave them the chance..  
  
.  
  
Nephrite was not in a mood to take humans lightly. He had learned, over the time of his  
  
deception, this "Maxfield Stanton" play-acting, just how interesting a place this Earth could  
  
be. Against their colorful fashions, their delicious foods, that fine jazz music, the  
  
Negaverse was a gray place indeed. This was a dangerous way to be thinking, however. Lesser  
  
crimes than the open admiration of a slave species had sent other generals to the Everlasting  
  
Sleep..  
  
.  
  
"The real point is to get the Rainbow Crystals," Zoicite continued. "The Queen wants them very  
  
badly. They must be powerful indeed.".  
  
.  
  
They were, Nephrite thought, but not half as powerful as what they led to: the Silver Imperium  
  
Crystal itself. It was a good thing Zoicite did not know that. She was far too open already  
  
in her disdain for the Queen -- only a fool could fail to see she meant to hold the crystals  
  
and their power for herself. And Queen Beryl, Nephrite thought, was no fool..  
  
.  
  
"I bet you'll be glad to leave this dump and get set up in a proper castle," Zoicite said then.  
  
"I mean...a Tiki Lounge? Couldn't you find a ruined church or something to stay in?" Her  
  
tinkling laughter pealed out again..  
  
.  
  
Echoed by the jingle of the front door. The little fool! Nephrite thought. It was that girl,  
  
the one called Molly. The one with that charming childish crush on him. He lifted one  
  
white-gloved hand. In a motion he could hide his Negaverse military garb and be once more  
  
disguised as Maxfield Stanton. Zoicite was here, though, and plain as day in her red-trimmed  
  
gray. And Zoicite was making no move to hide..  
  
.  
  
"Well, well, well," Zoicite said archly. "What have we here? A little lost lamb?" She raised  
  
a hand herself, and her fingers began to close in a familiar gesture..  
  
.  
  
"Don't," Nephrite said impulsively. "She's not worth it," he added hastily. Too late, too  
  
late, he thought. That moment of reckless compassion will be my undoing. Why did she have to  
  
pick this moment out of all possible moments to come forward with her feelings? He could see  
  
in the girl's face the nature of her errand..  
  
.  
  
Zoicite could see it too. She uncurled slowly, savoring the moment. "You really have gone  
  
native, haven't you?" she told Nephrite. She leered, implying far more than Nephrite had ever  
  
even imagined..  
  
.  
  
It wasn't any use trying to defend himself. She'd caught him trying to protect the child. It  
  
didn't matter how little real meaning she had to him. Zoicite would carry this news to the  
  
Queen. That's how things were done in the Negaverse. Any excuse to cut down a competitor.   
  
Any hint of failure that could bring down the royal wrath..  
  
.  
  
"Oh, I've got to go," Zoicite smiled. "I so wish I could stay and chat. Enjoy yourself,  
  
lovebirds! You have all the time in the world!" And in another round of her brittle laughter  
  
she was gone..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
The door was open. Of course the door was open. Everything was dark downstairs but the  
  
elevators still ran. They tromped into the steel cage and it began to lift. Amy kept up a  
  
running commentary. "The Tokyo Tower is the world's highest self-supporting iron tower," she  
  
said. "It was raised in large part to prevent Tokyo from being covered in aerials; the signals  
  
of five FM stations and nine different TV stations are broadcast from the tower; including NHK,  
  
NTV, TV Asahi and Tokyo Metropolitan TV. There are also weblink antenna, shortwave, and FM  
  
interwave antenna.".  
  
.  
  
The elevator lifted, far too swiftly for any one's ease of mind. The travel way was an open  
  
girderwork and they could see night-time Tokyo through the gaps as they rose. Already, they  
  
were above the height of any of the nearer buildings. "They used only 4,000 tons of steel,"  
  
Amy said. "Technology has improved since the Eiffel Tower was built. The Tokyo Tower was  
  
essentially pre-fab, large pieces brought to the site and bolted together in what was record  
  
time.".  
  
.  
  
"Where does she get all this stuff?" Serena rolled her eyes..  
  
.  
  
Amy grinned. "Picked up a brochure downstairs," she said. She winked. "Got to keep up  
  
appearances!".  
  
.  
  
The elevator lifted higher and higher. Already only a couple of the tallest buildings were  
  
level with them. The rest of Tokyo was spread out below. Lita imagined she could hear the  
  
wind through the girders. No, no imagination; a gust had just rattled the car..  
  
.  
  
When the car came to a stop it startled everyone. "You sure about this?" Amy said, gesturing  
  
at Lita's empty hands..  
  
.  
  
"It's a good gamble," Lita said. "That was a good idea of yours. I like having an edge in  
  
reserve.".  
  
.  
  
And the door was open..  
  
.  
  
The Main Observatory seemed very open and very bare without people. The shops were closed up,  
  
the racks of souvenirs put away to leave most of the floor clear. The slanting windows, almost  
  
floor to ceiling, dominated the octagonal room. The central core of elevators, the stairs to  
  
the restaurant, the gift shops left what was essentially a wide corridor almost ten meters  
  
across and running the circumference of the Observatory..  
  
.  
  
Zoicite laughed. She gave them time to get scared, letting her laugh show while she was still  
  
hidden. Lita stuck out her chin and did her best not to oblige..  
  
.  
  
Then the Negaverse General chose to show herself..  
  
.  
  
"How charming!" she said. "Are these cute things your seconds? Or did you bring them for  
  
back-up?".  
  
.  
  
"And how are you, Zoicite?" Lita said. "Who did you bring for back-up; Bud Light?".  
  
.  
  
Zoicite scowled. "Lets get this over with," she said. "Put that crystal of yours in the  
  
center of the floor.".  
  
.  
  
"Nothing doing," Lita said. "When I beat you, I'll take my crystals off your body.".  
  
.  
  
"And I'll do the same," Zoicite snarled. "It will be a pleasure!".  
  
.  
  
"Right, then," Lita said. "Let's have at it.".  
  
.  
  
"Bare knuckles, human girl? You really do have more confidence than brains. I would have  
  
expected you to bring that gun of yours.".  
  
.  
  
At this Amy stirred uneasily in her wheelchair. Lita just grinned. "Why?" she said. "D'ya  
  
think I'll need it?".  
  
.  
  
"Only if you wanted to be buried with it," Zoicite laughed. She made a big show out of rolling  
  
up her uniform sleeves. She blew on her knuckles..  
  
.  
  
Lita approached in a boxer's shuffle. She was wary, all senses alert. She hoped she could get  
  
near enough to land the first blow. But she couldn't help but remember Kosuke's last lesson..  
  
.  
  
"Remember the hiring scene in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai?" the wiry bodyguard had said.   
  
"Remember how the boss put a guy inside the door as a test for the prospective samurai? You  
  
don't want to be like Mifune's character -- he got hit with the club. You want to be like the  
  
guy that sensed the trap and didn't go in the room at all.".  
  
.  
  
And in that one moment out of all moments Lita became that guy. She sensed something behind  
  
her and threw herself flat. Whatever it was hurtled over her head. "Amy!" she yelled. Amy  
  
triggered a control and the God Gun shot out of the back of her wheelchair on a powerful  
  
spring. The creature landed on the floor and skittered around to come back at Lita. She had  
  
only a moment to admire its unsavory combination of insect spines and yellow rat teeth before  
  
the God Gun reached her. She snagged the weapon out of the air, hit the ground in a shoulder  
  
roll, and shot the creature into small stinky pieces..  
  
.  
  
Zoicite was NOT happy. There was a long silence from her, then she started to clap slowly.   
  
"Cute trick," she told Lita. "You did a lot better than the last fellow.".  
  
.  
  
Lita was back on her feet. "The last fellow," she echoed. She felt what seemed like a dash of  
  
cold water down her marrow. She had a really, really bad feeling about this..  
  
.  
  
"Why, the last fellow with some crystals to trade," Zoicite gloated. "Oh, and here he is!"   
  
She reached behind herself and shoved a folding door along its track..  
  
.  
  
Tuxedo Mask was propped up against a cabinet inside. His breathing was slow and agonized and  
  
he was covered with blood..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
The wind was gusting against the windows of the Main Observatory, spattering a few drops of  
  
rain against them. The city was all but invisible, but nothing could hide their great height  
  
above ground; the building moved like a live thing, shifting and swaying slightly against the  
  
wind..  
  
.  
  
"The situation just went to hell," Lita muttered to Amy. "Get Tux clear; I'll distract  
  
Zoicite." In that moment she grew up a whole lot. She could hear it in her voice as she spoke  
  
to Amy; a tone of realization and regret as she realized just what a mess she'd made here.   
  
She'd put Amy and Serena at risk. And she might have to sacrifice herself to get them out..  
  
.  
  
Then she was running at Zoicite. She had crossed three quarters of the distance before the  
  
woman reacted. But she reacted with massive firepower. Energy streamed from the fingertips of  
  
the Negaverse General. "Zoi!" she shouted. A flicker of it caught Lita and hurled her back  
  
across the floor..  
  
.  
  
She rolled, trying to hold on to the gun. Fire slashed through where she had been. The top of  
  
the elevator shaft exploded. The whip of energy continued, slashing metal across then  
  
exploding a bank of windows outwards. The whole tower shook. Lita heard Serena screaming, saw  
  
her stumble and slide across the floor..  
  
.  
  
We gotta take this outside, she thought. Away from the bystanders. She ran for the broken-out  
  
windows. Wet wind whipped through and it was damned dark and cold outside. She jumped anyhow,  
  
reaching up for a torn cable and hoping it would take her weight. Before she her mind caught  
  
up to what her body was doing she was outside, wriggling and scrambling towards the roof of the  
  
Main Observatory..  
  
.  
  
She made it. The steel was slick under her feet, and covered with cables and brackets and  
  
gutters and who knew what else. Lita backed away from the edge, feeling her way. She was  
  
higher up than the length of the track back at Juuban Junior High. She was looking down on  
  
fifty-story buildings. She was on a tiny island of steel, floating in the sky..  
  
.  
  
Something was glowing just below the edge of the roof. Lita heard that brittle laugh, like the  
  
breaking of champagne glasses, again. General Zoicite came into view, arms crossed, hovering  
  
in the night sky and ever so deliberately coming up to meet Lita..  
  
.  
  
Lita turned and ran towards the central core of the tower. She hit an open stair and started  
  
up the metal treads, heading upwards..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
"Help me, Serena!" Amy made the briefest of inspections then grabbed the fallen hero under his  
  
arms. Every medical instinct she had cried out against moving an injured man. But if they  
  
wanted to live, they couldn't be here when Zoicite returned..  
  
.  
  
"The elevators!" Serena cried. "They're gone!".  
  
.  
  
Amy thought fast. She didn't like the answer she came up with. "Up the escalator," she said.   
  
"We'll take the elevator above. It's our only option right now.".  
  
.  
  
"I got his feet," Serena said. She was being remarkably calm, Amy thought. Tears stained  
  
Serena's face, but she was steady, able to help, able to work towards their survival..  
  
.  
  
They dragged the poor bleeding boy up to the escalator. The trip up was brutal on all of them.  
  
Then they bundled him and themselves into the small cage that traveled between Main  
  
Observatory and Special Observatory. It was too cramped to do much but hang on, and watch as  
  
the city dropped further and further beneath them..  
  
.  
  
At last they spilled out into the bare room lined with coin-operated telescopes. It was  
  
circular and barely eight meters across. And they were now two hundred and fifty meters above  
  
the ground. At midnight, in a damaged steel building over thirty years old, with a terribly  
  
injured young man -- while a deadly powerful alien prowled outside..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
"Gotta, take a chance," Lita gasped. "Slow her down." She plunged up to a landing on the  
  
steel stairs. Swung around quickly and brought the gun up to her shoulder. The ruby needle  
  
darted out into the night sky..  
  
.  
  
Zoicite blocked it, negligently, while still floating upwards like an evil balloon. The  
  
General blocked the beam with a little wave and a burst of energy. Then, as she rose level  
  
with the climbing girl, she gathered bright energy between her hands and sent it out in a  
  
crackling ball. Okay, make that like an attack helicopter, Lita thought..  
  
.  
  
The landing twisted sideways, supporting members buckling around it with nail-dragging  
  
screeches of tortured metal. Lita fell back, smashed into the railing, then slipped through  
  
the gap between the rails. She hit, hard, on a structural member just below. Light was still  
  
flaring above her in remnant of Zoicite's attack..  
  
.  
  
"That, didn't, work," Lita gasped out. She was all tangled up in the steel webbing here. She  
  
wriggled and pushed and suddenly her legs were swinging out in space. She took a chance and  
  
let herself slip until she was holding on by one hand. One toe found something. She dropped  
  
towards it. It turned out to be a narrow pipe...her foot turned a moment later and she  
  
overbalanced. Fortunately the stair was right there. She pulled herself to it, dragged her  
  
feet up, scrambled over the rail and in another moment was back on the stair just below where  
  
she had fallen off..  
  
.  
  
Zoicite was getting real close. Lita could see a maintenance walkway just across from her and  
  
she ran as quickly as she could on the mist-slick steel to get to it. In all the darkness and  
  
confusion of complicated bits of steel she didn't see the ladder until she was right on top of  
  
it. She zipped up her jacket, stuffed the God Gun in there, and started to climb. "Next  
  
time, I bring a sling," Lita said. It wasn't very comfortable carrying the weapon like this.   
  
But it beat the heck out of trying to climb a metal ladder one-handed in the dark..  
  
.  
  
She'd messed up bad. She knew that now. Zoicite was way too powerful for her. Her confidence  
  
was gone. She knew, now, what Amy had felt on her lonely rooftop -- a crushing sense of  
  
hopelessness and failure. Zoicite was going to kill her. With her bare hands, if she could;  
  
the insults Lita had handed to her still seethed in the woman. And before Zoicite left she  
  
would kill Lita's friends as well..  
  
.  
  
And take the crystal. It was right there, in a pocket of her jacket. The crystal would give  
  
Zoicite and the Negaverse even more power. And worse. This crystal, and the rest of the  
  
seven, were their only link to the Moon Princess -- the one thin hope they had left to stop the  
  
Negaverse..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
"Serena," he said weakly..  
  
.  
  
Tuxedo Mask was conscious. Amy had dressed his wounds as best as she could with improvised  
  
bandages. She continued to tend him now, wiping gently at the blood that covered him. Serena  
  
was kneeling, cradling his head on her knees. Her jacket did little to cover his broad  
  
shoulders, or the terrible wound in his chest that continued to soak the bandages in blood. It  
  
was just the three of them, in this dimly-lit shelter, this little aerie high in the cold night  
  
sky. The wind gusted against the windows, made the floor tremble, and the sky through the tall  
  
windows was black..  
  
.  
  
"I'm here," Serena said gently..  
  
.  
  
"Again," he whispered. And smiled, somehow. It lasted for only a moment before his lips  
  
clenched in pain again..  
  
.  
  
"Again?" Serena questioned. Amy looked up, briefly, then went back to her tending..  
  
.  
  
"The rose," he said. He closed his eyes. It did not seem that he would continue, but then his  
  
eyes opened again. His voice was only a whisper. "You gave me a rose.".  
  
.  
  
"I'll give you all the roses you want, Tuxedo Mask." Serena's voice was shaky. "Just please  
  
get better.".  
  
.  
  
"No," he said. He gave a barely perceptible shake of the head. "The mask," he said. "Take it  
  
off.".  
  
.  
  
"Now?" He could just barely nod. She reached with trembling hands. The white domino mask was  
  
sticky with blood. "Darien?" she said. "Darien?".  
  
.  
  
He smiled, again. His eyes were warm. "I..." he said weakly. "I was a fool.".  
  
.  
  
"No," Serena objected..  
  
.  
  
"I REMEMBER it now. The hospital. After the accident. I had just lost everyone close to me.   
  
You were there, with your mother, and a new brother. You came to me, Serena. You reached out  
  
your hand in friendship.".  
  
.  
  
Serena hitched around to look him full in the face. "That long ago," she whispered..  
  
.  
  
"You gave me your love then. It has taken so very long for me to admit I loved you in return."  
  
His hand came up. Serena took it in both of hers. He gripped back with surprising strength.   
  
"I love you, Serena. Now and forever.".  
  
.  
  
It was as if her heart held a flower, that lay dormant through the winter, waiting for the  
  
spring rains and the new sun. Now it burst through the earth in a sudden wave of growth,  
  
flowering into glory under the sun. Warmth suffused her, a warm trembling that was almost  
  
painful in it's glory. "I love you too," she said, and knew it to be true. "Now and forever.".  
  
.  
  
It was a moment frozen in time. Their hands clasped. Eyes filled with eyes until the rest of  
  
the universe went away. There was no doubting this love, no wondering if it was only a passing  
  
infatuation or the natural sympathies of their present situation. It was real, and true.   
  
Infinite in extent. As sure as sunrise and as solid as bedrock..  
  
.  
  
At last the moment ended, and it was Darien that broke it. "I was such a fool," he said  
  
wistfully. His strength was slipping fast. He didn't have long..  
  
.  
  
"No," Serena said quickly. "Never a fool.".  
  
.  
  
"We could have had our time under the sun. Instead I chased a memory. I came here, Serena. I  
  
came to fight Zoicite for the crystals.".  
  
.  
  
"It was Lita's challenge," Amy spoke for the first time. "You came earlier.".  
  
.  
  
"I was too driven to care about the danger," Darien said. "She attacked from behind. That  
  
creature of hers. Now she has the crystals. She has the Rainbow Crystals.".  
  
.  
  
"All but one," Amy said..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
The crystal was in her clenched hand. She was done. Finished. Her bull-headed confidence had  
  
led her here. Amy had tried to teach her, Serena had tried to teach her: the value of caution  
  
and planning, the value of passion and friendship. Too late. She had gone after Zoicite the  
  
way she'd go after a school bully, and it had brought her here..  
  
.  
  
To the edge of a girder that stretched out away from the face of the tower. At the end the  
  
silver cone of a microwave dish pointed towards Shinjuku. Racetracks of cables ran down the  
  
length of it. A single steel cable was all it had for a human to hold on to. She was a mere  
  
two hundred meters up; only twice as high as the highest building she could see. The streets  
  
below her were silver threads. Plenty of height, though, to shatter her body. And shatter as  
  
well the last of the Rainbow Crystals..  
  
.  
  
"Give it to me," Zoicite hissed. "Give it to me and I'll let you go.".  
  
.  
  
"No," Lita said sadly. This was the only way it could end. They couldn't let the Negaverse  
  
have the Rainbow Crystals. They couldn't let the Negaverse find the Silver Imperium Crystal..  
  
.  
  
But...could anyone find it, if the crystal were destroyed? "Stay back!" Lita cautioned Zoicite  
  
as the Negaverse General tried to move closer. "Another step and I'll jump!" Wasn't the  
  
Silver Imperium Crystal, and the Moon Princess, the only thing left standing in the way of the  
  
Negaverse? Was she destroying their only hope as well?.  
  
.  
  
She had fought as best as she could. Climbed until she was exhausted. Ducking and hiding in  
  
this maze of steel, ever climbing, while the Negaverse General slowly paced her. She hadn't  
  
attempted the God Gun again. Zoicite had proven too well she was able to block it. And the  
  
return fire of the dark energies she commanded was shaking the structure of the tower itself..  
  
.  
  
She had bought time. Maybe enough time for Amy and Serena to escape. She had no more strength  
  
and no more will to keep fighting. It was over. "Heck," she said softly. "It was a fun life.  
  
I liked the food.".  
  
.  
  
Zoicite had gotten thoughtful. She smiled wickedly as an idea came to her, and her gloved  
  
fingers began working in some mystical gesture..  
  
.  
  
Lita let go of the cable. Clenched her hand with the last Rainbow Crystal in it tight to her  
  
chest and came up on her toes....  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
"No, please hang on, no!" Serena pleaded. "Please!" She gripped his hand tightly..  
  
.  
  
He found her eyes, looked puzzled for a moment. Then he smiled one last time. His eyes closed  
  
and the labored breathing stopped..  
  
.  
  
Tuxedo Mask was dead..  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
NEXT -- What can I say? You know there's going to be surprises, shocks, and revelations, but  
  
I'm not going to spoil it for you! The only fair thing to say is....  
  
.  
  
The stunning end to this special two-parter! Be there -- and I'll show you!.  
  
.  
  
(And I promise to have it done soon!) ^_^;;.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
Special note...Fanfic Net consistently eats my formatting. Until an admin actually replies to my  
  
emails you'll have to put up with these stopgap periods....or go to http://home.earthlink.net/~nomuse/moonpages/fanfic.html to see what the chapters are SUPPOSED to look like. 


	19. FreeFall in Crimson

The sky was dark and overcast. Water hung heavily in the air of a moon-less night. It was after midnight, and cold. Standing sentinel amidst the buildings of Tokyo was the stark outline of the Tokyo Tower, a monument in steel, the tallest thing in the city. The white floodlights playing against its sides were cold and pitiless.  
  
If one were to look very, very closely, one might notice faint flashes of light high up in the tower; high above the observatory level, up where the tower narrowed; flashes of a strange and unsettling light amid the steel web-work there. There was no other sign that up there, four young people fought desperately for their lives against a powerful and relentless being, with the fate of all of Tokyo resting on the outcome...  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS  
  
Episode Nineteen : Free-Fall in Crimson  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
Molly stumbled through the night. She let her feet take her where she needed to be. He didn't love her. It was simple and cold and impossible to mistake. The man she loved didn't love her in return.   
  
Worse, her love had put him in danger. She had not been so terribly shocked to see Maxfield Stanton in the uniform of a Negaverse General. Somehow, some part of her had already known. It was more of a shock to see Zoicite there, with him, there in Max's Place. She knew about Zoicite, all right. Zoicite was evil, quite evil.  
  
Maxfield had stopped her from hurting Molly. But not because he loved her. Just out of that compassion she had always known was within him. Stopped her, and was now in danger because he had. Because in Zoicite's eyes he had betrayed the Negaverse. Or, Molly realized, because she was evil and she knew how to make it look like he had betrayed the Negaverse. Molly knew little about Queen Beryl, but if she had people like Zoicite and Jadeite working for her, then Maxfield was in terrible danger.  
  
She stumbled, stayed somehow on her feet. The cold, water-logged air had left her clothes damp and her hair close and tangled about her face. She had destroyed her love. Exposed it to the cold eyes of Zoicite and hurt the man she cared for in doing so. And all for nothing.  
  
Serena. She needed Serena. Her friend had always been there for her. Even now, when Molly had kept so many secrets, she knew Serena was ready for her to come to her for help. She needed Serena now. She needed comfort. And if there was a way, any way, to save Maxfield...  
  
The Tsukino house was dark. Molly paused at the front entryway. She hated to wake her friend. But she had to. The longing and sorrow was so strong it felt like it would split her in pieces. She needed to be with her friend, NOW.  
  
A light came on when she knocked. There was a long pause. More lights, working their way down towards her. Then the door.  
  
"Molly?" It was Serena's mom.  
  
"I'm sorry," Molly blurted. "I needed to talk to Serena. I'm sorry I woke you up."  
  
"Oh my god. Molly, what happened? Quick, come inside." She bustled Molly into the foyer. "Get out of those wet shoes. Here's a dry towel. Oh, Molly!" She was almost crying herself. "Who can I call? Your mother? The police? Do you need to go to the hospital?"  
  
"I..." Molly was starting to cry again, the tears released by all this compassion. "I need to talk to Serena."  
  
Serena's mom gave her a long thoughtful look. "I'll bring her down," she decided. "I won't push you to call anyone else until you are ready."  
  
Molly didn't even make it out of the foyer. She sat on the edge of the wooden floor, slippers forgotten on her feet, towel wrapped tightly around her wet clothes.  
  
Serena's mom came down the stairs slowly. "She's...she's not in her room," she said strangely. In her face was the dawning of realization; that Molly was not the only girl out late this night, that both girls shared some terrible secret. And following that realization, the first touch of fear. "Molly," she said slowly and very precisely, "Do you know where my daughter is?"  
  
"Oh, no!" Molly said. She met the woman's eyes, all thoughts of her own problems suddenly banished. "She has to be...Lita was going to..." she thought aloud. "She's in terrible danger!" she blurted out.  
  
"Where is she?" Mrs. Tsukino's voice was steely.  
  
"There was....a challenge," Molly said raggedly. "They must have decided to go with Lita. Serena, Amy too. They didn't tell me!"  
  
"Where?" Serena's mom snapped.  
  
"The Tower," Molly whispered. "They're at the Tower."  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
Serena was hunched over Darien's body, chest heaving with sobs so powerful they could only claw their way out. They had been together, they had realized the deep love between them, for so short a time, and Amy's own heart was tearing in two to watch her.  
  
An hour ago he had been here, strong and vital; a tall, serious young man with jet-black hair. Darien was Tuxedo Mask. It was Darien that had came to their rescue when things looked their most grim. Who had given them hope to fight on. He had been a kind of Sailor Scout himself, fighting the same evil they had fought for so long.   
  
That evil had finally struck him down. He had come, here, to challenge Zoicite for the Rainbow Crystals. Now she had all but one of them and Darien was lying in a pool of his own blood.   
  
He was gone. He was dead.   
  
He was... CLINICALLY dead. Amy's eyes snapped wide open. "I'm a fool!" she cried.  
  
She threw herself on her knees right by the young man's head. "Move!" she said tersely. Serena moved, her eyes wide. Amy cupped one hand under Darien's neck and with her left pressed back on his forehead, tilting his head back. Moving rapidly, she ducked her head to place her ear right over his mouth. Nothing. She didn't bother waiting longer, but shifted her left hand to pinch his nose shut and gave him two full rescue breaths.  
  
The chest was rising and falling properly. Air was getting into his lungs. She couldn't let herself feel relief. Her hand felt again, at the corner of that lean jaw. Nothing. No heart beat. She had expected nothing different but it still shook her. She swiveled around on her knees. Swept aside the jacket that covered his chest. Her hand traced the lower rib margin almost automatically. Right hand into the space there, right on the lower part of the breastbone. Left on top, fingers interlocked so they didn't touch ribs anywhere.  
  
She had to lean way over to get her arms straight. She came up off her knees, but she could just get her shoulders right over her hands. "One-and-two-and-three-and-four!" she chanted as she pressed down, three cm each time, keeping the beat regular.  
  
When she reached fifteen chest compressions she stopped, clambered around to get into position for the rescue breathing again. She was already panting for breath. "Serena....!" she said.  
  
"I...I'm here!" Serena said. She seemed to shake herself. A new light was in her eyes. "We can save him?" she said.  
  
"Keep his head tilted back," Amy panted, "No, more; you have to make sure the airway is open! Okay...use your left hand to close his nose. Now take a full breath. You don't need to blow hard, or fill his lungs. Just one full breath."  
  
Serena took a deep breath, obviously reaching for calm. She hesitated for just a moment, looking at the pale face below her. Amy realized, incongruously, that this was to be their first kiss. Then Serena ducked in, administering the rescue breathing.  
  
Amy was back in position. She went fifteen more chest compressions. She was finding the rhythm and her breath was returning. "Again, Serena!" she said. "We have to maintain a pattern. That's the third rule of CPR. Fifteen chest compressions, two full breaths. Repeat. Working together we should be able to keep it up for hours."  
  
"Hours?" Serena said.  
  
"That's the second rule of CPR. Once you start, Serena, you can't stop until you are relieved by competent medical authority, or your own life is in immediate danger."  
  
"I will never stop trying to save him," Serena said. "Never." It was time, and she ducked to administer the next set of breaths. "What's the first rule?" she asked when she finished.  
  
"I forgot," Amy lied. And used the next set of compressions to clinch the evasion. The first rule, she thought grimly, is that you only start CPR on dead people. Success rate of CPR on trauma cases like this is very small. He may have lost too much blood already. All we can do is try, and hope to keep his brain from dying, and try to hold out until rescue arrives.  
  
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Lita had failed and lost. Her confidence was gone. Good riddance, she thought; it had been her bull-headed confidence that had gotten her into this. She had the last Rainbow Crystal in one hand, now, and she was damn well going to take it to the ground with her and deny Zoicite her prize.  
  
Her free hand left the thin cable. She came up on her toes on the slick steel girder, ready to launch her body into space.  
  
"Not yet!" a voice cried.   
  
"Not yet?" Lita echoed, balanced on her toes two hundred meters over Minato-ku.   
  
Zoicite snarled and started to turn. Energy snapped across the space to meet her. There was a strange twang like a single note on the lowest string of a Shamisen and Zoicite howled in surprise and pain. A silvery ghost arrow stood out from the General's right hand before vanishing into mist.   
  
"I haven't forgiven you for Grandfather, you witch!" a young voice cried out. She stepped out into the light. She was a striking, black-haired girl about Lita's age. She was dressed like a manga character in silk dress with Chinese collar, short boots and an open suede jacket, and in her hands was an ancient bow that seemed to hold an invisible arrow trained on the Negaverse General.  
  
Lita took a wild guess. "Raye?" she asked.  
  
"Hino Rei, one hundred and ninth daughter of the Hino Line, pledged to carry on the fight of good against evil!" the girl declared ringingly. "And you, Zoicite, you definitely qualify!"  
  
Zoicite cursed at her, holding her injured hand.  
  
Lita felt her feet slipping. She windmilled hard. One foot went into space. Then she staggered back into balanced and grabbed for the cable. The narrow bit of steel cut into her palm as she sagged against it. "Whew!" she said aloud. She shoved the last Rainbow Crystal back in a pocket and zipped it shut with the same hand.  
  
"That's it!" Zoicite howled in rage. "You die now, all of you!" She snapped out her good hand and energy flamed towards the girl with the bow. Who wasn't there any more. Raye had ducked out of sight, vanishing like a ghost. Zoicite screamed with frustration and the energy continued to stream from her fingertips, searching the gaps between the truss-work and eating into the great girders that supported the tower.  
  
"Two can play that game," Lita said aloud. She slid down to an untidy crouch on the narrow beam and fumbled out the God Gun. "Eat this, Zoicite!" she cried and triggered the beam. The lance of red struck the raging General in the middle of her back. Light exploded and she was thrown off her feet.  
  
Lita didn't stick around for Zoicite to recover. She scrambled to the more secure footing of a catwalk and ducked out of sight around the central core.  
  
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How could she have missed what was going on? "Darn that girl," Luna panted as she ran. Serena hadn't even thought of telling her. Now all the children were there, fighting Zoicite, all of them up on that absurd building.  
  
She might have missed it completely if it hadn't been for what she had just learned. Fortunately others had been listening. It was the first comfort she'd found since she came to self-awareness in this era and began her search for the Princess that was her charge. There was someone else. Someone in Authority.   
  
Unfortunately, Authority wanted them to finish this one on their own. And that meant, as Luna had found to her deep chagrin, that the whole group of those reckless children were now high over Tokyo in an insane bid against an evil greater than they could possibly comprehend....  
  
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They kept at it, grimly, in their tiny shelter so high in the dark night sky. Amy did not speak, afraid she might reveal too much of her fears. Serena was so quiet. So much had happened in so short a time, her balance could only be precarious. Amy could see, growing behind her friend's eyes, the understanding Amy had tried to shield her from. The understanding of mortality; that all things die, and all good times end, and worst...that one must go on, regardless. Sometimes that was the hardest thing of all; not the dying, but the living.   
  
Amy kept at the effort to save Darien. She would leave him no more than Serena would. Not as a doctor, not as a friend, not as a hero -- not even a hero who understood a little of the true cost of heroism. It wasn't smart and it wasn't logical, but Amy was staying. If only she could be so sure of Serena. She could only hope, for her friend's sake as well as Darien's, that Serena was strong enough to hold on...  
  
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They didn't exactly have Zoicite on the ropes. They were keeping the alien busy, though. How long they could keep it up was another matter. Lita ducked out of sight and ran hard down the slick catwalk, changing her position. When she stuck her head out again Zoicite was not in sight. Raye was; they were in a good position to cover and provide cross-fire, assuming Zoicite hadn't changed direction after that last hit she took. Lita propped up the God Gun and waited. She wondered how many shots she had left; until that "fuel cell" ran out of whatever was in it. Fuel, probably.  
  
She was running a little low on fuel herself. They had been playing snake and mongoose with the alien warrior, moving fast, shifting position, each one drawing the fire away from the other. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. They were stinging her, but it wasn't enough. Zoicite was weakening but Lita and Raye were weakening faster. It was only a matter of time before they slipped up.  
  
Zoicite showed in exactly the wrong spot. Lita snapped off a shot to try to make her duck, then dropped herself as energy streamed out. It splashed against girders, the concussion throwing her backwards. What was worse is how the structure of the tower trembled. What Zoicite lacked in accuracy she was determined to make up in sheer firepower, and the massive energy-storms she was hurling about weren't doing the old steel structure much good.  
  
Shoot, drop, shift position. Lita rolled out of range, then scrambled to her feet, made a quick dash, hurdled another railing then ducked around the massive girders of the central core. She almost ran into Raye there. As smoothly as if they had rehearsed it they came back-to-back with weapons out, pausing there while they tried to catch their breath.  
  
Raye held out two fingers. Two minutes, she meant. Lita shook her head. "We can't let up on her," she told the other girl between gasping breaths. "She's too strong. All we got is the home field advantage."  
  
"Save your breath," Raye said.  
  
"Tuxedo Mask is here," Lita pressed on. "He's hurt. Amy and Serena are with him."  
  
"Got it." Raye nodded sharply. Her dark eyes clouded. "Ready?" she hissed.  
  
"Ready."  
  
With that they spilled out from around the pillar, one heading in each direction. Lita saw her first. Her weapon snapped around. She saw it almost in slow motion; the alien General turning, beginning to gesture, her own finger tightening on the trigger even as she dragged the muzzle into line. She shot a moment before Zoicite did. Energy skittered out in a broken lightning bolt, flickering within centimeters of Lita's eyes and plucking at her jacket.  
  
Zoicite was stunned for the moment. Lita raised the muzzle of the God Gun and raced for a nearby ladder. She knew Raye was covering Zoicite as she shifted position, but she counted seconds. Anything over twenty seconds out of cover was unsafe. Lita's sneakers hit the steel catwalk crisply, and she had a moment of pleasure at how well her body was holding up. She was winded, and short of breath, but her mind was still mostly clear and her senses sharp.  
  
Sharp enough to hear a tiny crystalline sound. Lita faltered in her dash. What could make a sound like that? Could it be...? She slapped her jacket pocket. It was flat. Her fingers, probing further, found the tear. Had it been that last attack Zoicite tossed?  
  
Lita skidded to a stop and turned, all senses focused towards that tiny missing shard. She hoped Raye was paying attention! There, there it was! The last Rainbow Crystal was skidding along the catwalk. Lita raced towards it. It skittered and hopped, bouncing closer to the edge. "Damn!" Lita muttered. She dashed three more steps then dove towards it.  
  
Somewhere to her right Raye's bow twanged again, and another mystical arrow shot through darkness. Lita was in mid-air, plunging towards the glittering red fragment. No shout came from Zoicite. No further sound from Raye, either. Then Lita hit, skidded on her elbows, banged into the lower railing. She had it...her hands were closing on it...  
  
The tower shuddered like a live thing. The scream of torn metal was momentarily deafening. Sheared bolts and small metal parts rained out of the sky around her as the catwalk pitched first to one side, then the other. Them with a Godzilla-like scream, the catwalk tore free completely at one end. Lita flailed, smashed her elbow against an upright hard enough to numb her entire arm even through the tough leather jacket, then got a knee hooked around something that wasn't currently falling into space.   
  
The crystal skidded off the catwalk and down the middle of a narrow beam. Lita groped for it with her numb arm. Her own body was sliding, too. Steel continued to groan and sparks crackled from above her and there was a burning smell.  
  
Lita gritted her teeth. The Rainbow Crystal glimmered, poised right at the edge of the beam. "I can't let it fall!" Lita whispered.  
  
Letting it fall, earlier, would have been a terrible mistake. She saw that now. It would have taken from everyone the hope that she had lost. She had fought alone for so long, with nothing but brute confidence to sustain her, the death of that confidence had almost been her death. But now Raye was here, Raye, with her unquenchable spirit, Raye willing to fight the Negaverse no matter how impossible the odds.   
  
Raye was right to still believe. Amy was right when she had said the death was the only end of hope. Lita had her feet back under her. She was going to see this thing through. And she was willing to gamble, now; to preserve the Rainbow Crystals and the chance of finding the Moon Princess even if it risked letting them fall intact into the hands of the Negaverse.  
  
The tower was still shuddering. Some awful change was passing through it. The broken catwalk swayed on its last connection. Lita shook her head ruefully. No real choice here. She had to crawl out on that thin rail of steel and retrieve the thing. Lita grabbed for the rail with her good hand. Got her legs unhooked. Let her body slide around until she was in position to creep out through the railing and out over Tokyo after the glittering crimson shard.  
  
She reached. Not far enough. The gem was still out of reach. Lita looked down. Misted lights spread out below her like a jeweled net. The cold air cut against her face and bare hands and the steel below her pulled heat from her body. She unhooked her leg. Let her body slide another vertiginous hand span, then another. She felt the steel railing hard against her ankle; now, only the traction of her shoe and the security of one pair of shoelaces held her from a fall. But her fingers were brushing the crystal. Lita touched it lightly. Tapped it, felt it rock, then slip sideways. Now she had a fingertip on it. Pressing it between finger and I-beam she teased it back until she could grasp it in her hand.  
  
The crystal was safe. Now all Lita had to do was pull back to safety herself. She pulled with all the strength in her legs, her over-worked tendons complaining. Then with a sort of flop she got one hand, then one arm, hooked about the remaining handrail. She more slithered across then climbed, and let herself collapse on the relative safety of the catwalk.  
  
"Thank you," a voice said. Zoicite! The crystal was pried from Lita's fingers before she could react.  
  
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Lita crawled slowly to her feet. This was the endgame, now. She didn't have enough fight left in her for more than a few minutes. She was sure Raye was just as exhausted. She raised the God Gun wearily. The end of the fight would come quickly. "Well," she shrugged, "At least it can't get any worse now."  
  
Under her the tower shuddered again. She heard again a low sound, a deep subsonic groaning that seemed almost organic. "Lita!" Raye called from not far away. "Lita, the tower is starting to change!"  
  
Zoicite smiled slowly. "And right on schedule, too!" She looked from one girl to the other. "Why do you think I picked this spot for our little dance, children? This is the first of the crystal points to be transformed. The first of the links from our world to this."  
  
"The...the crystal points..." Raye shook. "Amy was right! They got enough energy. They've finished! Now all they have to do is open the gate!"  
  
The Tower shivered again. Lita kept the God Gun trained, and her eyes on Zoicite. Below her the Tower was visibly changing. Tendrils and threads that looked organic were climbing rapidly up the legs. To her right the central core was being overtaken, alien vines shooting up the main supporting beams. The Tower shuddered. Weakened by the fight, its structure could not take the transition from steel to organic material. Parts were splitting and falling away.  
  
Zoicite smiled. "We've won, Human girl."  
  
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Up in the Special Observatory they felt the Tower shaking. The walls were the first to go. Slightly over half their surface turned a sickly yellow-green in an instant. The Tower swayed, a whiplash that traveled up its length until it was enough to send Amy staggering backwards.   
  
"Serena!" she cried, struggling up from her knees.  
  
The parts that had turned organic suddenly sagged, too weak to support their own weight. With a sickly slurping sound the organic material tore and clumped away from the remaining iron. The floor under Amy tore away in one flap and in a heartbeat she was in free fall.  
  
"Ameeee...!" Serena cried. She stumbled backwards until she was pushing, terrified, against the remaining solid wall. "No....!" she sobbed. "You can't leave me. Not all of you. Not alone....!"   
  
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Amy wondered if she'd reach terminal velocity. L equals 1/2 AT squared, and she had 250 meters to fall. Terminal was a mere 56 meters per second. But that didn't factor in air resistance. What was that, v=(g/c)(1-e(-tc))? She wasn't up to integrating that one in her head. Her thoughts were flashing. Better to settle her life, make apologies to her mother. Perhaps she'd have enough time to compose a death haiku...  
  
She hit steel hard enough to drive all thought out of her for a moment. Had it not been slanted nearly seventy degrees off horizontal it would have driven life from her as well. She hit flat, slid, slipped from that, fell again, this time landed feet first and immediately, instinctively, crumpled to take up the shock. She was winded, bruised, her ribs smarted enough to tell her she might have cracked several, and her head was swimming. But she was alive.  
  
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"Well, what have we here?" Zoicite snickered. She was regaining her good humor. Not that she was likely to let any of them live until daylight, Lita thought. "Well, well, well. I've got the Rainbow Crystals, I've got the world, and now it seems I get the girl as well!"  
  
Amy had fallen not a handful of meters away. Zoicite, final crystal still clenched in one hand, was strolling over to the girl's crumpled body. Lita felt a great wave of helplessness. She was so tired. She'd fought so hard. But her weapons were no match for Zoicite. She couldn't stop the alien General. She couldn't protect her friend.  
  
She got to her feet anyhow. A fragment from an old book caught in her memory. "A professional is a guy that gets the job done, whether he likes it or not." She held the God Gun loosely, and walked towards the Negaverse General.   
  
Raye came slowly from the other direction. She still had that ancient-looking bow, and her unusual outfit, though it too was stained and torn from their long struggle against Zoicite. Lita could see the same determination burning in her black eyes. They'd stop Zoicite, and protect Amy, or they'd die. There was no third choice.  
  
Amy groaned, and opened her eyes. Her legs were crumpled under her, and something about the way she moved told of injuries to her chest, maybe her back as well. The Negaverse General stopped right over her. She looked down at the girl, visibly forcing an amused sneer. "I have all the Rainbow Crystals now. I think that makes me strong enough to take on the Great Witch herself. I sure as hell couldn't do a WORSE job of ruling the Negaverse! I would very much like to bring them together at last, but, oh well, pleasure before business."   
  
She lifted one booted foot delicately and stepped precisely on the fallen girl's slim ankle. "I'll kill the geek first. Then the Girl Psychic." She lifted her head to look directly in Lita's eyes. "I want you to hurt a lot. Killing your friends before your eyes is a good start."  
  
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How could she go on? She was a child, a schoolgirl, not some sort of hero. How could she possibly fight in this nightmare war? Did she have smarts like Amy? Strength like Lita? Did she know stuff about the Mystic Arts? No! She was a cry-baby! A little brat! A clumsy child!  
  
And the only person left by Tuxedo Mask's side.  
  
That was it, her one thread of sanity. She had no hope, no hope of rescue -- the tower was falling down around her ears and at that she'd be lucky if Zoicite didn't find her first. But she was here.  
  
"Once you start CPR, you don't stop until relieved by competent medical authority."  
  
She was here, and Darien would be alive as long as she...  
  
As long as she fought for him. She bent over, mechanically. The rescue breathing, first. Her own breath sounded hollow in her ears. Then around, trying to mimic Amy's movements.  
  
It was no use! She didn't know what she was doing! He needed someone who knew medicine, not a child who slept through all her classes!  
  
But there was no-one else here. And Darien needed her.  
  
She swung around on her knees. Darien's chest was so broad she had to come up on her toes to get the arms straight over him. She leaned down, afraid of hurting him. Shook the hair out of her eyes crossly. Leaned down hard, until she felt the chest wall give slightly. There! That's what had to happen. She was putting pressure on his still heart, forcing life-blood through it and into his tissues.  
  
She leaned in, and did the compressions. She was gasping for breath already as she dropped back onto her heels and propped his head back to give the rescue breaths again. It was so terribly cold here. And so alone. The night had been going for so long there was now a sliver of silvery moon low on the horizon. It wasn't possible that she could continue.  
  
It wasn't possible she could stop. For Darien, she could be strong enough. And for Amy, who would have expected no less. And for herself. She wasn't going to be the kind of girl that gave up. She wasn't going to let hopelessness and tears stop her.  
  
She finished the mouth-to-mouth and turned to administer the chest compressions again. The tiny fragment of moonlight was in her eyes now, lighting them from within. Everything she had, everything she was, was focused onto saving Darien. Nothing on this Earth or any other was going to stop her. "One! Two! Three! Four!" she panted. "I, won't, let, you, die!" She panted between compressions. "Dammit!" she said fiercely. "Live, Darien, Live!"   
  
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Zoicite's gaze suddenly snapped to her own hand. It shook, like something was trying to get out. Something was. The red crystal, the Rainbow Crystal taken from Game-Machine Joe, wriggled between her fingers and was free. There was a sudden snapping and popping as uniform pockets on her tunic tore open as well. Other crystals leapt out; the crystal Tuxedo Mask had captured. The crystals from Grandfather, and from the old gardener that had turned into a stag, and the ones from the rest of the seven victims. Greg's crystal, Lita realized, must be one of them.  
  
The crystals all rose to eye level, and danced in a tight circle there. Zoicite cursed and made a swipe for them. Too late, as they were already changing.  
  
As they watched, the seven fragments of a rainbow slid neatly together, their colors blending into pure white light. Shock-waves of energy and transformation shot out, one color of the rainbow after another, as blinding white light built in the center. They were fitting, even as they blended, showing themselves to be just part of a greater whole. Of one nearly spherical, multi-faceted crystal that glowed like white diamond.  
  
"The Silver Imperium Crystal!" Zoicite gasped. "That's what this was all about! That's what the Queen was after!"  
  
Her fingers reached, trembling, for the glittering prize. And once more it eluded her. It shot into the sky, rapidly accelerating. In a moment it was gone, although Lita had the brief impression that something glowing had dipped into the Special Observatory in the tower above them.  
  
Zoicite screamed in pure frustration. Her foot came down hard, grinding Amy's slim ankle into the steel.  
  
Amy didn't cry out. "I've had enough of this," she said almost conversationally. Her hand opened, and something she had brought from her pocket was there. "MERCURY...POWER!" she shouted.  
  
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The transformation surged through her body. First that wave of icy pure water, so shockingly cold it was painful, washing her naked in an instant and washing away all sorrow, all sin. Then the wave of power that surged though her like a warm tide, unlocking hidden energies, freeing her limbs, stirring all parts of her to new life. It was back, it was hers, it was the right thing to do and she should have done it long ago. No curse was on her. She was long safe from what the Frost Giant had done -- only her fear had kept her from resuming her full power.  
  
Amy's eyes snapped open even as the golden circlet of Princess Mercury formed again about her brows. "MERCURY BUBBLES!" she cried. The wave of cold moisture slammed into the Negaverse General at point-blank range.  
  
Princess Mercury stood again. Her legs were still weak, but she could feel the new strength stirring in them. Good Moon Kingdom stock, she thought distantly, memory stirred for a moment by the transformation. We heal fast. She turned, nodded gravely. "Princess Jupiter," she greeted her friend. One of the Guardians was also here. "Luna," she greeted her in turn.  
  
"Prin....whaaa?" Lita said open-mouthed.  
  
"She's right!" Luna gasped. "Oh, why didn't I see it earlier!" She leapt up then, made a funny circle in the air. "KITTY MAGIC!" she cried. "Oh, how I hate that phrase," she sighed, even as a golden transformation pen clattered out of the sky.  
  
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It was all happening much too quickly. Zoicite was already getting up. Lita glanced briefly at the weapon in her hands. It wouldn't stop the General. Maybe this new thing would. She saw the glitter in the air and realized Luna had hurled the "transformation pen" towards her.  
  
So this is what Amy had talked about! Lita wasn't exactly a skeptical type. She had no reason to doubt anything Amy had said before, about transforming into a costumed super-hero. But she had also no reason to plan around it, as it didn't seem to be happening any more. Until now. Until Amy had suddenly, and definitely, changed in ways that had given her both a snazzy new outfit and, more importantly, a snazzy new power.  
  
Amy was blinking, as if coming awake from a dream. She grinned at Lita, and it was a different grin then that oddly formal greeting she had given before. Well, Lita hoped she knew what she had been talking about back there. She caught the golden pen out of the air. Held it high. "Um..." she said. "MERCURY...I mean...JUPITER....POWER!"  
  
A lightning storm exploded about her. She reveled in it. The electricity was a fire down her nerves. It bathed her skin, crackling and consuming until she was nothing but an embodied arc. Then bands of plasma flame began to form. Out of them came a green skirt, pink bows -- her two favorite colors. Calf-length boots laced themselves up along her feet and a circlet pressed itself against her brows.   
  
"Well, well, well," Lita grinned. She could feel the crackling still there on her skin. It begged to be used. She could feel the command words pressing at her skull -- and wondered where that memory had come from. She also felt a new strength, a heightening of every bit of physical competence and awareness she had ever held before. That made it only one possible choice. Heck, she was a physical girl, and besides, this was PERSONAL.  
  
As the shock-ring of the transformation moved out Sailor Jupiter planted her new boots on the steel catwalk and ran at high speed towards the recovering Negaverse General. She now had white gloves of her own, elbow-length. Which was almost a pity, because this was gonna be a bare-knuckled end to this particular encounter.  
  
She hit Zoicite with everything she had. It was a good uppercut, no, a great uppercut. It caught Zoicite right in the sneer and lifted her clear off her feet. Her eyes rolled up in her head. And she arced slowly out off the catwalk and over the edge, heading for the city far below.  
  
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"Serena," Amy said quietly. "We have to get to her."   
  
"Hmm," Lita agreed. She turned to grin at Luna. "Good timing, cat. But couldn't you have made it earlier?"  
  
"Perhaps you should have taken better care of the elevators," Luna snapped. "Do you know how many stairs there are on this tower?"  
  
"Don't answer, Amy," Raye snickered.  
  
Amy didn't smile. "Come on," she urged.  
  
Lita caught her mood quickly. "You're worried about Tux," she said. "He's hurt worse then we thought."  
  
"I'm worried more about Serena," Amy said. She wouldn't explain more.  
  
The last twenty meters of stairs were clogged with debris. Amy couldn't walk without aid and both Raye and Lita were shivering with fatigue. For all of that, the distance from the site of the last battle to the Special Observatory passed as if in a dream. All of them had too much to think on, and too much to dread.  
  
The tiny room was still. Some trick of the light seemed to catch and magnify the sliver of new moon rising in the east, to fill the space with a cool silver light. Nothing moved inside.  
  
Amy went to Serena first. She couldn't help herself. Darien had been her patient. But Serena was her friend. She felt, gingerly, for a pulse as she had felt before. Serena's was there. It was strong and slow. She was...she was okay. She was unconscious, but she was okay.  
  
"Amy?" Lita's voice called to her. "I think you ought to see this."  
  
"We...we tried," Amy said. She didn't even bother trying to stand, but crawled from her sleeping friend to the body of the young man they had worked to save.  
  
He was breathing. His heart-beat -- Amy felt with a trembling hand -- was weak but steady. "Something healed him," she said, knowing how inadequate that explanation was. The Silver Imperium Crystal. When it flew from Zoicite's hand, it looked as if it was headed here. Had it healed Darien, then, before vanishing? Amy shook her head. She wouldn't grace that with even the title of being a theory. There simply wasn't any evidence.  
  
"Let's get them out of here," she said.  
  
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He found her there at the foot of the tower. Zoicite was barely alive. Her eyes flickered open, but they weren't tracking. "Nephrite?" she whispered.  
  
"Yes," the Negaverse General said quietly. "I'm here."  
  
"I did it," Zoicite said. Her lips twisted into the faintest of smiles. It made her look oddly innocent, almost a child again. "I had the Imperium Silver Crystal. I had it in my hands."  
  
"Yes," Nephrite said again. "You did good, Zoicite. You did real good. Now sleep."  
  
She smiled once more and closed her eyes. It was possible she never felt the crystalline blade Nephrite plunged into her back and through her heart.  
  
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They made it to the foot of tower at last. A lone figure waited for them in front of the main building. Her arms were crossed, her toe was tapping in impatience, and her eyes were something to fear.  
  
"I think it's time we had a little talk," said Ikuko Tsukino.  
  
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Next -- Serena tells all, Raye explains where she's been, and the PTA gets involved. What could we call it, but "Aftermath"? Be there, and I'll show you!  
  
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A Special Note on CPR:  
  
There are times when a writer has a special duty to the public. This is one of those times. I have tried to present CPR as accurately as I could within the constraints of the story, but I must caution that I am not qualified to teach CPR, nor to give out medical advice. This is a work of fiction; what I showed was both simplified and altered for dramatic purpose.  
  
Get down to the Red Cross and get CPR certified. It saves lives. Sailor Moon says! 


End file.
